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The Samkhya system of the Bhagavata Purana
Basel, Peter Charles https://iro.uiowa.edu/discovery/delivery/01IOWA_INST:ResearchRepository/12730612790002771?l#13730812340002771
Basel, P. C. (2012). The Samkhya system of the Bhagavata Purana [University of Iowa]. https://doi.org/10.17077/etd.0vlj8m1z
https://iro.uiowa.edu Copyright 2012 Peter Charles Basel Downloaded on 2021/09/24 19:45:11 -0500
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THE SĀṂKHYA SYSTEM OF THE BHĀGAVATA PURĀṆA
by
Peter Charles Basel
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts degree in Asian Civilizations in the Graduate College of The University of Iowa
July 2012
Thesis Supervisor: Professor Frederick M. Smith
` Graduate College The University of Iowa Iowa City, Iowa
CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL
——————————————–
MASTER’S THESIS
——————
This is to certify that the Master’s thesis of
Peter Charles Basel has been approved by the Examining Committee for the thesis requirement for the Master of Arts degree in Asian Civilizations at the July 2012 graduation.
Thesis Committee: ———————————————-- Frederick M. Smith, Thesis Supervisor
———————————————— Morton Schlütter
———————————————— Maureen Robertson
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 1
Date and Contents of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa 3 History of Sāṃkhya 10 Summary of the Classical Sāṃkhya System 15 Other Influences 19 The Cosmology of the Kapilagītā 24
CHAPTER
I. MAJOR DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE TWO SYSTEMS 27
The Place of God 27 Kapila 35 Puruṣa 47 Kāla 55 The Vyūhas 68 The Antaḥkaraṇa 78
CONCLUSION 84
BIBLIOGRAPHY 97
ii 1
INTRODUCTION
The Bhāgavata Purāṇa is one the most popular and influential Sanskrit religious texts. Among the Purāṇic literature it occupies something of a unique and revered position as the primary religious document of Vaiṣṇava bhakti, or devotion; particularly devotion to Kṛṣṇa. Its popularity throughout South Asian history can be demonstrated from the overwhelmingly large number of manuscripts and commentaries as well as the number of translations into vernacular languages.1 This is particularly true of the tenth book of the text which is primarily concerned with Kṛṣṇa’s life. Though the text is commonly known today as one of the primary sources for the Kṛṣṇa stories, there is actually a great deal of speculative and theological material in the Bhāgavata, far more in fact than many of the other Purāṇas. A great deal of this material consists of some variation of the Sāṃkhya School of philosophy. Sāṃkhya is understood to be one of the six traditional darśanas of Hindu philosophy and though it has not always enjoyed as great of popularity as some of its rival schools, its influence can be seen in nearly every facet of Sanskrit literature. What is commonly referred to as the Classical Sāṃkhya philosophy is exemplified by the Sāṃkhyakārikas (2nd-3rd cent. C.E.) attributed to
Iśvarakṛṣṇa, which present a dualistic and non-theistic system of philosophy. The version of Sāṃkhya that is found in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa does not conform to the details of the classical system, although it does share many elements in common.
The Sāṃkhya of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa can be found in a number of places throughout the text, but its most systematic versions are found at 2.5, 3.5, 3.7, 3.26, and
1 Ludo Rocher, The Purāṇas, vol. 2.3 of A History of Indian Literature (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1986), 149-150. 2 throughout the eleventh book.2 The most prominent of these is probably 3.26, which is found within a larger section that is often referred to as the Kapilagītā, named after the traditional founder of the Sāṃkhya School. Though these are the principal places where the philosophy is given as a whole, this peculiar brand of Sāṃkhya is referenced throughout the text. When discussing the third book Dasgupta notes that “Kapila has been described as an incarnation of God, and the philosophy that is attributed to him in the
Bhāgavata forms the dominant philosophy contained therein. All through the Bhāgavata the philosophy of theistic Sāṃkhya as described by Kapila is again and again repeated in different contents.”3 While it is certainly arguable whether or not the Bhāgavata’s form of theistic Sāṃkhya is the “dominant philosophy” of the text, there is no denying its conspicuously prominent role. It could easily argued that the central philosophy of the
Bhāgavata is, in fact, devotion to God, specifically in the form of Vāsudeva-Kṛṣṇa, but there is no denying that the Sāṃkhya philosophy as presented in these sections forms the basic cosmological, and in many ways even theological, underpinning of the entire text.
What is most fascinating about the version of Sāṃkhya that is given in the Bhāgavata
Purāṇa is the way in which it allows one to trace some of the influences that played major roles in the composition of the text. Although many of the Purāṇas contain
Sāṃkhya material, in some cases quite a significant amount, the Bhāgavata presents a system that does not fully agree with any of them, but betrays a number of traces to quite a few other traditions. When these influences are traced a more complete understanding of the religious climate of the text’s composition may be reached.
2 Surendranath Dasgupta, Indian Pluralism, vol. 4 of History of Indian Philosophy (London: Cambridge University Press 1966), 26.
3 Ibid., 30. 3
Date and Contents of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa
The Bhāgavata Purāṇa is generally considered to be one of the more recent of the
Mahāpurāṇas. Though the Purāṇic literature is vast and was composed over an extended period of time eighteen of the Purāṇas are generally understood by the tradition to be the most ancient and the most authoritative. The list of these eighteen is far from agreed upon by all commentators and thus there are more than eighteen texts that might be considered
Mahāpurāṇas, but it is this class of scriptures which are of concern here. The two most common lists of these texts are those given in the Viṣṇu and Matsya Purāṇas. The Viṣṇu
Purāṇa gives the list as; Brahma, Padma, Viṣṇu, Śiva, Bhāgavata, Nārada, Mārkaṇdeya,
Agni, Bhaviṣya, Brahmavaivarta, Liṅga, Varāha, Skanda, Vāmana, Kūrma, Matsya,
Garuḍa, and Brahmāṇḍa. The list in the Matsya Purāṇa is nearly identical except that it replaces the Śiva with the Vāyu Purāṇa.4 The reasons for placing the Bhāgavata Purāṇa among the most recent of these has to do with its character as a text as well as a number of anachronistic statements within the text that serve as clues to both its date and origin.
The first clue to the probable later dating of the Bhāgavata is that it is not mentioned by or quoted in any text until the 10th century. The first possible reference is a quotation by
Abhinavagupta 10th-11th century C.E. in his commentary on the Bhagavadgītā, although this has been disputed.5 A text called the Bhāgavata is mentioned by Alberuni around
1030 C.E.6 This may very well refer to the same text, but as no other information about it
4 Freda Matchett, “The Purāṇas,” in The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism, ed. Gavin Flood (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), 133.
5 J.A.B. van Buitenen, “On the Archaism of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa,” in Krishna: Myths, Rites, and Attitudes, ed. Milton Singer (Honolulu: East-West Center Press, 1966), 26.
6 Edwin, F. Bryant, “The Date and Provenance of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa,” Journal of Vaiṣṇava Studies 11:1 Fall (2002): 53. 4 is given it is difficult to know for sure. There are also a number of commentaries that are roughly dateable, the earliest of which is that of Śrīdhara in the 14th century.7 This means the latest possible date of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa is well into the 11th or 12th centuries, a fairly late year for such a popular Purāṇa.
There is some good evidence that the Bhāgavata might have actually been written earlier than this and that there are simply no surviving records of its existence until much later. This is quite plausible as there are references in the remaining commentaries to an older commentarial tradition which is no longer available.8 The date cannot be pushed back indefinitely though. The Bhāgavata appears to make reference to the Tamil
Vaiṣṇava Āḻvārs; “In the Kali Age there will be devotees of Nārāyaṇa, O King, in great numbers everywhere in Tamil country.”9 Though the dates of the Āḻvārs are far from clear, there is good evidence that their work was completed by at least the eighth century and that most of them were not much earlier than this.10 As this verse does not appear to be a conspicuously late addition to the text the current version of the Bhāgavata probably cannot be earlier than the eighth or ninth century. The Bhāgavata also has been shown to be based on the Viṣṇu Purāṇa, a text was probably not written until somewhere in the range of 500-700 C.E.11 Dennis Hudson has also shown a great deal of evidence that the
Vaikuṇṭha Perumāl Temple in Kanchipuram shows clear evidence of the Bhāgavata and
7 Rocher, 149.
8 Daniel P. Sheridan, “Śrīdhara and his Commentary on the Bhāgavata Purāṇa,” Journal of Vaiṣṇava Studies 2:3 (1994): 49.
9 Van Buitenen, “On the Archaism of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, 26.
10 Friedhelm Hardy, Viraha-Bhakti: The early history of Kṛṣṇa devotion in South India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983), 488.
11 Ibid., 90. 5 since this temple was built around 770 C.E. the date of large parts of the text can be pushed back well into the 7th and 8th centuries.12
The question then becomes one of authorship. Who wrote the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, and why? One popular theory about the redactional history of the Bhāgavata is stated as follows, “The Śrīmad Bhāgavata has three phases of development. Its earliest form consisted of very old materials; it was given the shape of a Mahāpurāṇa, and this is the second phase in the early Christian era; and its last phase represents the contribution of the Tamil saints.”13 Given the relative uniformity of the Bhāgavata as a whole it is difficult to trace such interpolations and it is thus likely that such additions would not have been merely additions of material, but major redactions of the entire text.14 As compelling as this theory is, it is not necessarily well-reflected in the text itself. If the
Bhāgavata is the product of a number of redactions, it certainly was a much more thorough job than much of the other Purāṇic material. In a number of the other Purāṇas clear distinction can be made between different source materials. A good example of this is the Kūrma Purāṇa which shows evidence that it was once a Pañcarātra text and then was completely re-edited by the Pāśupata School.15 Though there are a few examples of such material in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, on the whole the text displays a remarkable unity which has led many scholars to conclude that it must have been the product of a single
12 Dennis Hudson, “Dating the Śrīmad Bhāgavata Purāṇa,” in Krishna’s Mandala: Bhagavata Religion and Beyond, ed. John Stratton Hawley (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).
13 Ramnarayan Vyas, The Bhāgavata Bhakti Cult and Three Advaita Ācāryas: Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja and Vallabha (Jawaharnagar, Delhi: Nag Publishers, 1977), 197.
14 Ibid., 196-197.
15 Rocher, 185. 6 author, or a small number of people working over a fairly limited time and geographical area; or at the very least that the final version of the text is the product of an extensive editing process.16
There is actually a tradition that the Bhāgavata Purāṇa was the product of a single author, namely the thirteenth century grammarian Vopadeva. A number of early scholars accepted this authorship, but it is no longer taken very seriously. For one thing
Vopadeva is most likely too late to have been the author of the Bhāgavata, even with its late date. It is likely that this is mere confusion resulting from certain manuscripts of the
Bhāgavata Purāṇa. Vopadeva produced two texts related to the Bhāgavata which were often located in the margins of manuscript copies; the Muktāphala and the Harilīla. Due to this is it is not unsurprising that some appear to have confused Vopadeva as the author of the text itself.17 Even so, the version of the Bhāgavata that is extant today is very likely the product of a small number of people, probably working together, if not the product of a single author.
Due to the mention of the Āḻvārs Southern India is a likely place of origin.
Although the songs of the Āḻvārs became quite significant in Southern, Tamil speaking
India and eventually became identified as somehow equal to the Vedas in the Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition, there is no evidence that these saints were considered significant in Northern
India, particularly in the time period during which the Bhāgavata must have been written.
This places the composition of the Bhāgavata at roughly the same time and place as one of two highly influential dynasties, the Pallavas and the Coḷas. It is probably not
16 Daniel P. Sheridan, The Advaitic Theism of The Bhāgavata Purāṇa (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1986), 4-7.
17 Rocher, 144 - 145. 7 insignificant that this is also a period in which there is an increased awareness of as well as production of Sanskrit literature. During both the later Pallava and Coḷa periods
(roughly the same period and region in which the Bhāgavata must have been composed) there was a marked shift away from the use of Jain Prakrits to the use of Sanskrit and eventually Tamil in royal inscriptions.18
There is also some evidence that the composition of the Bhāgavata may have been driven by particular religious or political motivations, particularly motivation to prove the Vedic legitimacy of the authors. Even in the earliest mentions of the Bhāgavata
Purāṇa, there are serious questions about the nature of its language. In the early 19th century William Ward actually reports that pundits in Bengal acknowledged the difficulty of its language and recognized that it was written in a different style than the other
Purāṇas.19 In many ways the language that is used in much of the text seems to be archaic.
It uses Vedic expressions and grammar in ways that are uncommon of Classical Sanskrit texts, the majority of which follow the grammar of Pāṇini. More than this, it even seems to deviate stylistically from the other Purāṇas. While most Purāṇic literature is written in fairly standard (and often simple) meters, the Bhāgavata favors much more complex and poetic metrical forms; often seeming to self-consciously make use of Vedic meters.20 The motivation behind this is not totally clear, but J.A.B van Buitenen has theorized that these eccentricities are evidence of Sanskritization. The placement of doctrines and practices
18 A.G. Menon, “The Use of Sanskrit in South Indian Bilingual Royal Inscriptions: Social, Political and Religious Implications,” in Ideology and Status of Sanskrit, ed. Jan E.M. Houben (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996), 251-252.
19 Rocher, 144.
20 Hardy, 491-492. 8 that might have been of questionable orthodoxy within a text with overtly Vedic language may have served to legitimate these practices and doctrines to the wider Vedic culture.
There is quite a lot of evidence that the devotional traditions in South India from which the Bhāgavata seems to have sprung were considered to be of dubious orthodoxy by many within the Vedic tradition, particularly Vedāntins. Thus there may have been ample motivation to compose a text that sounded like the Vedas, but taught a doctrine which was often considered to be outside of the Vedic fold. Thus, the Bhāgavata may be the result of a process of Sanskritization undertaken in relation to the Bhāgavata tradition.21
Some have pointed out that this would be the only known example in all surviving Sanskrit literature in which such a thing was done. This calls into question how likely it would have been for someone to compose a text with artificial Vedic features; a fact that some have claimed proves it may include material of a significantly older date.22
It should also be noted that as the authors of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa are not known, it is possible that the atypical language of the text may not necessarily imply a conscious effort to fabricate a Vedic pedigree for the text. It is not outside of the realm of possibility that the Bhāgavata was composed by a group of people, probably Brahmins, who simply did not follow the Pāṇinian grammatical tradition for whatever reason. A prime example of this can be seen with the case of the Vāstusūtra Upaniṣad of the Atharvaveda. This text, which was discovered only in the 20th century in Orissa, is of uncertain date, but at least portions of it appear to be quite old. This text includes quite a lot of material that is not generally considered to be Upaniṣadic such as temples and worship of images and is
21 van Buitenen, “On the Archaism of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa,” 38-39.
22 Dennis Hudson, “The Śrīmad Bhāgavata Purāṇa in Stone: The Text as an Eighth-Century Temple and is Implications,” Journal of Vaiṣṇava Studies 3:3 Summer (1995): 142-143. 9 written in an un-Pāṇinian form of Sanskrit. It also displays Sāṃkhya influence.23 Though there is probably no relationship between this text and the Bhāgavata, it does show how the perception of Sanskrit literature is colored significantly by the texts that have survived. It is not completely outside the realm of possibility that many of the unique features of the Bhāgavata could simply be the result of relative isolation.
As a relatively late Purāṇa the influence of other Purāṇic and epic material on the composition of the Bhāgavata should not be disregarded. In fact, there is ample evidence that the Bhāgavata was composed by people who were well aware of the previous literature and were concerned with both referencing it and correcting what they perceived to be mistakes within or misinterpretations of these texts. Given the later date of the
Bhāgavata, one of the most probable sources for much of the material found within it is the other Purāṇas themselves. There is a great deal of evidence that much of the
Bhāgavata Purāṇa is based on the model of the Viṣṇu Purāṇa.24 This is particularly true of the tenth book in which the version of the Kṛṣṇa story is kept relatively intact with additions made to the basic framework of the story presented in the Viṣṇu.25 The influence of the Mahābhārata, as with all Purāṇas, cannot be discounted either. The
Mahābhārata itself serves as something of a jumping-off point for most of the Purāṇas and in the case of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa the influence of the Mahābhārata is more explicit.
23 Katherine Young, “Brāhmaṇas, Pāñcarātrins, and the Formation of Śrīvaiṣṇavism,” Studies in Hinduism IV: On the Mutual Influences and Relationship of Vīśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta and Pāñcarātra ed. Gerhard Oberhammer and Marion Rastelli (Wien: Verlag der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2007), 210-211.
24 R.C. Hazra, Studies in the Purāṇic Records on Hindu Rites and Custums (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1975), 22.
25 Hardy, 497-499 10
The Bhāgavata Purāṇa consists of twelve books called skandhas and approximately 18,000 verses. The frame story of the text concerns Parīkṣit, a descendent of the Pāṇḍavas. After being cursed to die in seven days, he retires to the bank of the
Ganges to fast until his death and while there engages in a dialogue with Śuka, the son of
Vyāsa, who narrates the Bhāgavata Purāṇa to him. This is largely concerned with the proper method of worshiping the Bhagavān, Nārāyaṇa or Vāsudeva through bhakti
(devotion). Over the course of the text the history of the world from its creation to eventual destruction is narrated with special emphasis placed on the avatāras of
Bhagavān and his devotees. The tenth, and largest, book is generally considered the most important as it narrates the life of Kṛṣṇa-Vāsudeva in detail. The importance of the tenth, and to lesser extent the eleventh, books of the Bhāgavata is amplified by the text’s focus on bhakti, or devotion to Bhagavān, specifically in the form of Kṛṣṇa. Throughout, bhakti is presented as the most advisable form of religious practice and worship of Vaiṣṇava forms of divinity is praised over all others. The Bhāgavata also presents a curiously pro- renunciation view of religious practice. The Vedic sacrifices are almost unanimously denounced and abandoning the Vedic sacrifices, and in many cases the life of a householder in general, is deemed necessary for liberation.
History of Sāṃkhya
Sāṃkhya appears to have arisen out of what might be loosely termed the renunciate traditions. There is ample evidence that this is the case in both the mentions of
Sāṃkhya in other texts and the school’s descriptions of itself and its own doctrines. The real question is not whether or not Sāṃkhya arose from within renunciate traditions, but what sort of traditions these were. In general were two broad traditions of renunciation in 11 early South Asia; Vedic or Brahmanical and what have been termed Śramaṇical traditions.
While there are some scattered references in the Vedic corpus to ideas that may or may not be related the Sāṃkhya, there is simply is not enough clear evidence to know for sure whether what is being described is Sāṃkhya or something else entirely.26 A few of the
Upaniṣads contain material that looks to be related to Sāṃkhya, particularly the
Śvetāśvatara Upanṣad, but it is not at all clear that these texts were composed without any influence from Śramaṇical culture, especially since the Śvetāśvatara is a relatively late Upaniṣad. It seems much more likely that Sāṃkhya emerged out of Śramanical movements. These traditions comprise a wide variety of later schools and religious traditions including Buddhism, Jainism, Ājīvikism, and a wide variety of renunciate orders. These Śramaṇical traditions probably sprang from a common religious and cultural milieu which existed apart from the religion of the Vedas.27 In general Sāṃkhya shares a great many traits with the Śramaṇical systems; for instance, it denies the value of the Vedic sacrifices to bring about any ultimate goal, especially when these include killing, and it maintains that renunciation of the world is helpful, if not necessary, for liberation. Even though it is clear that Sāṃkhya shares many ideas with these Śramanical traditions, it is also the case that Sāṃkhya fared much better in terms of its acceptance within the Vedic fold. There is much about the early history of Sāṃkhya that is far from clear and it is quite likely that what became known as Classical Sāṃkhya represents
26 Gerald James Larson and Ram Shankar Bhattacharya, Sāṃkhya A Dualist Tradition in Indian Philosophy Vol. 4 of Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2006), 3-5.
27 Johannes Bronkhorst, Greater Magadha: Studies in the Culture of Early India (Leiden and Boston: Brill 2007), 72. 12 something of a fusion of various strains of thought from within both Brahmin and
Śramaṇa thought.
The earliest clear references that can be unquestionably attributed to Sāṃkhya thought can be found in the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad. This text is thought to represent an amalgamation of various strains of Upaniṣadic thought. Due to this it has often been charged with lacking a coherent doctrine. On the whole the Śvetāśvatara identifies the
Brahman with the god Rudra, teaching that some sort of meditation on or devotion to
Rudra will result in the liberation of the practitioner. The first most commonly cited to show the Sāṃkhya influence on the Śvetāśvatara is 4.5, “One unborn male [billy goat], burning with passion, covers one unborn female [nanny goat] colored red, white, and black, and giving birth to numerous offspring with the same colors as hers, while another unborn male leaves her as soon as she has finished enjoying her pleasures.”28 Though this is obviously highly symbolic language, the commonality with Sāṃkhya ideas is obvious enough that it has been used throughout history by the Sāṃkhya School as evidence that their philosophy can, in fact, be found in the Vedas. Vācaspatimiśra (9th-10th century C.E.) even quotes from it in the introduction to his commentary on the Sāṃkhyakārikas, as if to show that this system is, contrary to what any might say, Vedic.29.
The Dharma Sūtras do not contain much information that might be considered
Sāṃkhya, though this is hardly surprising as no matter the authors’ opinions on the matter such questions largely do not fall within the purview of these texts. It might be
28 Patrick Olivelle, trans., The Early Upaniṣads: Annotated Text and Translation (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 425.
29 Michel Hulin, Sāṃkhya Literature, A History of Indian Literature Vol. 4, Part 3, Fasc. 3 (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1978), 131. 13 pointed out that on the whole the earliest of the Dharma Sūtras do seem to confirm the theories of Bronkhorst and others that there were two rather different types of renunciation; Vedic and non-Vedic. Interestingly, the Baudhāyana Dharmasūtra contains a striking reference to Kapila. “There was once a demon named Kapila, the son of
Prahlāda. It was he who created these divisions in his campaign against the gods. No wise man should pay any heed to them.”30 While this would seem to confirm the idea that
Sāṃkhya was initially a non-Vedic renunciate tradition, it is not at all clear that this is a definite reference to the same Kapila as he does not expound on any doctrine that is distinctly Sāṃkhya. It is a tantalizing hint at what very well could have been Brahmanical antagonism towards early Sāṃkhya teachers, but without further evidence it can prove little. Lengthy discussions of Sāṃkhya ideas can be found in a number of early works, notably the Buddhacarita of Āśhvaghoṣa and the Carakasaṃhitā.
Quite a few references to Sāṃkhya and Sāṃkhya-like ideas can be found in the
Mahābhārata as well. Discussions of Sāṃkhya in the Mahābhārata can primarily be found in three places: the Bhagavadgītā, the Anugītā of the Āśvamedhikaparvan, and the
Mokṣadharma section of the Śāntiparvan. Though the textual history of large portions of the Mahābhārata is still not entirely clear, the Bhagavadgītā is most likely the earliest of all of these. One of the primary difficulties involved with the Bhagavadgītā is knowing how the text should even be interpreted in the first place. The text claims that it is teaching Sāṃkhya, but it is not entirely clear how this should be understood. These references are probably best explained as implying not a systematic explanation of the philosophy of the Sāṃkhya School itself, but this certainly does not discount the very
30 Patrick Olivelle, The Āśrama System: The History and Hermeneutics of a Religious Institution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993) 98-99. 14 probable influence of Sāṃkhya ideas during the course of its composition. The
Mokṣadharma is a much larger and much more heterogeneous text than the other two. It is comprised almost entirely of a series of shorter dialogues concerning a wide variety of methods of attaining mokṣa, or liberation. There is a great deal of material that might be considered Sāṃkhya or proto-Sāṃkhya in the Mokṣadharma and it seems to preserve a wide variety of differing opinions on every aspect of philosophical thought, thus making it an invaluable source for the history of ideas in ancient India.31
The first surviving text that might be termed a Sāṃkhya text proper is the
Sāṃkhyakārikas. There is actually quite a lot of evidence that this is by no means the first
Sāṃkhya text that was actually written. The text itself maintains that it is nothing more than a summary of a much more extensive system that can be found in a text called the
Ṣaṣtitantra.32 Īśvarakṛṣṇa also maintains that the philosophy of his text has been passed down through a long line of teachers beginning with a sage, who is identified as Kapila by the tradition. As this is the earliest surviving Sāṃkhya text its philosophy is generally given as the basic system of the Classical Sāṃkhya School. However, the
Sāṃkhyakārikas’ identity as a mere summary of what was most probably a much more complex system presents something of a problem as there are many questions about how its concise and poetic formulation of Sāṃkhya philosophy should be understood. A number of commentaries on the Sāṃkhyakārikas were produced between the 4th and 9th centuries, and it is within these that the system is more fully fleshed out. Eight commentaries on the Kārikas survive, though five of them appear to be based on a
31 John Brockington, The Sanskrit Epics (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 303-309.
32 Larson, Sāṃkhya, 125-127. 15 common commentarial tradition. These include the Sāṃkhyavṛtti, Sāṃkhyasaptativṛtti,
Gauḍapāda’s Bhāṣya, and the Māṭharavṛtti, as well as the Suvarṇasaptati which survives only in the 6th century Chinese translation of Paramārtha. The three remaining commentaries are all slightly later. The Yuktidipikā contains perhaps the most complete example of the argumentation of the early Sāṃkhya School and is probably slightly older than the other two commentaries, the Jayamaṅgalā and the Sāṃkhyatattvakaumudi of
Vācaspatimiśra.33 Besides the Sāṃkhyakārikas and their commentaries the most complete version of the Classical system is to be found in the Sāṃkhya Sūtras, which cannot possibly be older than the 14th or 15th century C.E..34 Due to their age this text cannot be of very much use for an understanding of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa.
Summary of the Classical Sāṃkhya System
Although there is much about Sāṃkhya that does not find its way into the
Bhāgavata Purāṇa, a short summary of some of the relevant aspects of the classical system will highlight some of the basic differences and similarities between the two versions. The Sāṃkhya philosophy as described in Īśvarakṛṣṇa’s Sāṃkhyakārikas is fundamentally dualistic. There are two eternally existing and fundamentally different principles, puruṣa and prakṛti. While there is a multitude of puruṣas there is only one prakṛti. This prakṛti is comprised of three qualities, or guṇas: sattva, rajas, and tamas; or, brightness, activity, and darkness. Ordinarily the three guṇas exist in a state of equilibrium within prakṛti. When this is the case prakṛti is referred to as either pradhāna
33 Ibid., 20-21.
34 Ibid., 327. 16 or mūlaprakṛtī. In this state prakṛti is entirely inactive and lies dormant; alone it is incapable of action. It is only through the association with puruṣa that prakṛti begins the production of the twenty-three tattvas (elements or principles), which comprise the material universe. When puruṣa becomes associated with prakṛti the three guṇas are agitated and the process of evolution begins. At this point mahat, the great one, is produced; in the Classical system mahat is equated with buddhi (the intellect). From buddhi the ahaṃkāra is produced. Ahaṃkāra is often translated as Ego, and literally means “I-maker”; this tattva creates the impression of individuality and egoicity. The ahaṃkāra is understood to be threefold. In each of these three ahaṃkāras a separate guṇa predominates; in vaikṛta-ahaṃkāra sattva predominates, in taijasa-ahaṃkāra rajas, and in bhūtādi-ahaṃkāra tamas. The ahaṃkāra produces two different groups of tattvas. The first group is produced from the vaikṛta-ahaṃkāra and includes the five buddhi-indriyas
(eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin), the five karma-indriyas (speech, hands, feet, organ of excretion, and organ of generation), and manas (the mind in its capacity as mental sense organ). The five tanmātras (sound, touch, form, taste, and smell) are produced by the bhūtādi-ahaṃkāra. Both of these groups are produced with the aid of the taijasa- ahaṃkāra since sattva and tamas both are inactive in their natural state and incapable of producing anything unaided. From the five tanmātras the five mahābhūtas or gross elements (earth, water, air, fire, and space) are produced. The antaḥkaraṇa, or internal organ, is comprised of the first three tattvas; buddhi, ahaṃkāra, and manas. In addition to this all of the tattvas except the five gross elements comprise what is called the liṅga-
śarīra, or subtle body. It is this concept which is used to explain reincarnation. Following 17 the death of the physical body the liṅga-śarīra continues to exist and transmigrates from body to body.
It should be noted that the dualism of Classical Sāṃkhya is not a strict mind-body dualism. A great deal of mental activity, including the individual personality, is understood to be comprised of prakṛti and it is in fact only the puruṣa, something like undifferentiated consciousness, which is really separate from prakṛti. Somewhat confusingly, the puruṣa is understood to actually be incapable of activity or causal interaction with prakṛti. It is said to be the enjoyer of prakṛti, but it is not actually touched by the karmic activity of the prakṛti. However, the prakṛti, being devoid of any intelligence, acts solely for the benefit of the puruṣa. This doctrine actually creates an interesting problem for Sāṃkhya though. If the puruṣa is incapable of action, how is it able to become liberated at all and how did it even become bound in the first place? It cannot actually do anything to change its situation since it does not act and is not affected by any action of prakṛti. The solution is that it actually doesn’t have to do anything. The false impression that the puruṣa was bound in the first place existed wholly as a function of prakṛti and once the knowledge of the puruṣa’s true nature is achieved the prakṛti ceases to be associated with it. As the Sāṃkhyakārikas put it, “As a dancer, having exhibited herself to the spectators desists from the dance, so does Prakṛti, the Primal
Nature, desist, having exhibited herself to the Spirit.”35 Thus liberation in the Sāṃkhya philosophy is the result of salvific knowledge. Though knowledge seems to be the primary means for attaining liberation, the Sāṃkhya School appears to have held that a number of activities were at the very least conducive to attaining this knowledge, if not
35 T.G. Mainkar, trans., The Sāṃkhyakārikā of Īśvarakṛṣṇa with the commentary of Gauḍapāda (Poona: Oriental Book Agency, 1964), 150. 18 absolutely necessary for it. These tended to include renunciation and ahiṃsā (non- violence), which the Sāṃkhyas seem to have been famous for. Even so, these methods are not specifically mentioned in the Kārikas and it is possible that some Sāṃkhyas did not understand these things to be essential for liberation.
As might be expected from this sketch of the system, the position of Sāṃkhya within the wider Vedic culture is actually somewhat tenuous. At various points throughout history opinions toward Sāṃkhya have often been outwardly hostile.
Sāṃkhya has often been attacked for being un-Vedic. This is a slightly strange phenomenon as in the Sāṃkhyakārikas the Vedas seem to be listed as one of the valid sources of knowledge. The Kārikas list three sources of knowledge; sense experiences, inference, and reliable testimony. This is then interpreted by most commentators as meaning the testimony of both reliable people and the Vedas. Despite this Sāṃkhya is often accused of being non-Vedic or even anti-Vedic. This may have something to do with its probable roots in Śramaṇical culture. Even so Sāṃkhya, or at least a great number of its theories, found a place in a wide variety of texts which gave rise to the somewhat confusing situation of the Sāṃkhya cosmology being something of a default position for nearly everyone while at the same time the school itself was attacked as heretical. This was particularly the case with Vedānta, but criticisms of Sāṃkhya can be found in a wide variety of texts and it is usually listed along with Yoga, Pāśupata, and often Pañcarātra as being uniquely non-Vedic. This has led to the perplexing situation where a number of texts, particularly some of the Purāṇas, seem to simultaneously condemn Sāṃkhya and use it as the basis for their cosmology. This animosity that some 19 held towards Sāṃkhya and related systems may, very well have influenced some aspects of the way in which the Sāṃkhya in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa was eventually formulated.
Other Influences
Apart from the obvious influence of Sāṃkhya itself, there are a number of other schools of thought and religious and philosophical traditions that appear to be related in some way to the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. The background of the Bhāgavata’s ideology is not entirely clear, but it is very unlikely that it simply appeared as a unique formulation of
Sāṃkhya ideas without influence of anything else. What is most probable is that the people responsible for the composition of the Bhāgavata were influenced by a wide range of traditions, many of which were probably in direct competition with one another. This cultural context would have provided a large number of vocabularies to the authors of the
Bhāgavata Purāṇa and would have allowed for a unique synthesis of religious and philosophical ideas. This is, of course, not an isolated event in the history of Indian literature, but the Bhāgavata presents an interesting case study of the mechanisms behind this process as it is an extremely interesting text, both stylistically and ideologically.
Besides the Sāṃkhya School proper there are a number of other traditions that make use of related Sāṃkhya concepts and arguments that in many ways resemble those of the
Bhāgavata; principally the Classical Yoga School and the Pañcarātra tradition. The influence of the wider first millennium Vaiṣṇava tradition, especially that of the Tamil
Āḻvārs, must not be discounted either, nor should the possible influence of Vedānta.
In general the Yoga School is considered to be closely related to the Sāṃkhya
School. The principle texts of this school are the Yoga Sūtras attributed to Patañjali and its principle commentaries and subcommentaries. The Yoga Sūtras are usually dated to 20 somewhere around the 4th century, just slightly after the appearance of the
Sāṃkhyakārikas.36 The Yoga Sūtras actually refer to themselves as a sāṃkhyapravacana, or explanation of Sāṃkhya37, and it is not an accident that the two schools have often been associated with one another. Apart from the doctrinal differences between the two texts, the Yoga Sūtras and their associated literature is far more concerned with the practical methods of attaining liberation than the literature of the Sāṃkhya School is, which has led many to theorize that originally the two traditions were part of the same system and the literature of each represented a different function; Yoga being the practical method by which liberation could be reached and Sāṃkhya forming the theoretical foundation.38 Apart from the Yoga Sūtras themselves the two most important
Yoga texts for the study of Sāṃkhya are the Yogabhāṣya attributed to Vyāsa, which is usually thought to be roughly contemporaneous with the Yoga Sūtras, and the
Tattvavaiśāradī of the Advaita Vedāntin Vācaspatimiśra.
The Pañcarātra is generally understood to be a form of sectarian Vaiṣṇava tantra.
In a sense this is true as it contains much ritual material that could easily fit under most definitions of tantra, although in general its surviving works do not contain very much that would be considered radical or antinomian. Generally speaking Pañcarātra is a ritual system; primarily of temple ritual and initiation, but also of individual Yogic practice.
However, besides this extremely detailed system of rituals the Pañcarātra scriptures also
36 Larson, Sāṃkhya, 166.
37 Gerald James Larson and Ram Shankar Bhattacharya, Yoga: India’s Philosophy of Meditation vol. 12 of Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2008), 23.
38 Yaroslav Vassilkov, “The Gītā versus the Anugītā: Were Yoga and Sāṃkhya Ever Really ‘One’?” Epics, Khilas, and Puranas: Continuities and ruptures : proceedings of the Third Dubrovnik International Conference on the Sanskrit Epics and Puranas, September 2002 (Zagreb: Croation Academy of Sciences and Arts, 2005), 225. 21 contain a theological system that forms the core of their understanding of the world and actually shares quite a bit in common with the theology of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa.
There are indications that the Pañcarātra may have existed at an early date. For instance there is iconographic evidence of the Pañcarātra theological system in southern temples, associating this evidence too strongly with later ritual systems is probably a mistake. Within the Mokṣadharma is a text which is of central importance for the history of ideas that shaped the Bhāgavata and other texts like it, this is the Nārāyaṇīya.39 The
Nārāyaṇīya is generally considered to be among the most recent additions to the
Mahābhārata, as with many such texts there is a great deal of disagreement over when it was actually written and whether or not it was originally an autonomous text that was added into the Mahābhārata, and if so, when? The general consensus is that the
Nārāyaṇīya is dependent on the Bhagavadgītā and thus must be more recent; probably not earlier than 300 CE.40 However, Hiltebeitel rejects this dating based on his interpretation of the textual evidence and maintains that there is no evidence that the
Nārāyaṇīya, at least in its basic form, is any older than 150 BCE – 0.41 The text as a whole was almost certainly not composed as a single unit, and most textual studies have confirmed that it is composed of a number of smaller passages that have been linked together in a way that strongly implies oral improvisation.42 Doctrinally the Nārāyaṇīya
39 Located at 12.321-339 in the Critical Edition.
40 Brockington, 293.
41 Alf Hiltebeitel, “The Nārāyaṇīya and Early Reading Communities of the Mahābhārata,” in Reading the Fifth Veda: Studies on the Mahābhārata, ed. Vishwa Adluri and Joydeep Bagchee (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011), 187.
42 Brockington, 294. 22 is remarkably cohesive for a text composed of a number of smaller portions. It is concerned almost entirely with the ekānta, or singular worship of the Supreme Being
Nārāyaṇa, to the exclusion of all other deities.
Even the name Pañcarātra itself poses something of a mystery. There are a wide variety of interpretations of what the word means, but most of these appear to be late and are not of much use in deciphering where the name actually comes from. Some have connected the Pañcarātra to a brief reference in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa in which
Nārāyaṇa conducts a sacrifice that lasts for five days in order to become the entire universe.43 The performance of this ritual also includes the recitation of Ṛgveda 10.9044, a text that has long been assumed to be a formative influence on Vaiṣṇava theology.45 This suggestion is not taken very seriously. Walter Neeval has made an interesting observation about the first known usage of the word Pañcarātra in relation to a Vaiṣṇava system that provides a very plausible explanation for the original meaning of the word. This occurs in the Nārāyaṇīya where the word pañcarātra is used to describe the upaniṣad (or secret teaching) which is given to Nārada by Nārāyaṇa. Neeval maintains that the word pañcarātra must then be understood as the night, or annihilation of the only group of five that is given any special attention in the preceding section; the five mahābhūtas. Thus the word pañcarātra would refer to the practices which bring about the separation of the self from physical reality. Since this is the earliest reference to Pañcarātra in a Vaiṣṇava ritual
43 Julius Eggeling, trans., The Śatapatha-Brāhmaṇa according to the text of the Mādhyandina School, Sacred Books of the East Vol. 64 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1900), 13.6.1.1.
44 Ibid., 13.6.2.12.
45 Bronkhorst, Greater Magadha, 213. 23 context this is a very possible explanation for the meaning of the term.46 It is, of course, impossible to know whether or not this represents the original usage of this term, but it is interesting that it seems to be so closely related to the Sāṃkhya cosmology that is so prevalent in the later Pañcarātra material.
The Pañcarātra literature itself is quite voluminous and has not been much studied by modern scholars. The vast majority of this literature is concerned primarily with ritual and thus is not of very much interest for any comparison with the Bhāgavata Purāṇa.
For the tradition itself the three most important texts are the Sāttvata, Pauṣkara, and
Jayākhya Saṃhitās. Collectively these are known as the three gems (ratnatraya). These three are generally considered to be the oldest of the Pañcarātra saṃhitās.47 Pañcarātra texts that contain enough speculative philosophical and theological material to be of interest for this paper include the Paramasaṃhitā, Ahirbudhnyasaṃhitā, and the Lakṣmī
Tantra, none of which appear to be particularly early.48 It should also be pointed out that what remains of the Pañcarātra literature is fairly late and may not accurately represent the earliest stages of Pañcarātra thought. Alexis Sanderson has demonstrated that all
Pañcarātra texts appear to be based on Śaiva models and thus cannot possibly be older than the ninth century C.E. in their present form.49
46 Walter G. Neeval, Jr., Yāmuna’s Vedānta and Pāñcarātra: Integrating the Classical and the Popular (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1977), 8-10.
47 Jan Gonda, Medieval Religious Literature in Sanskrit vol. 2.1 of A History of Indian Literature (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1977), 52.
48 Ibid., 94-98.
49 Alexis Sanderson, “The Śaiva Age: The Rise and Dominance of Śaivism During the Early Medieval Period,” in Genesis and Development of Tantrism ed. Shingo Einoo (Tokyo: Institute of Oriental Culture, University of Tokyo, 2009), 62. 24
It is also important to note the differences between the terms Bhāgavata and
Pañcarātra. In a general sense Bhāgavata can refer to any worshiper of the Bhagavān, or
Lord, and is a typical designation for any Vaiṣṇava. It seems that in earlier times it sometimes had a much more exact usage. One such usage was for the priests who were in charge of the ritual worship of Viṣṇu. These priests, though Brahmins were often accused of having lost their ritual purity and brahmanical status, a fact that has much bearing on the possible origins of the Purāṇa which bears their name. Thus, Bhāgavata appears to be a much broader category than Pañcarātra. Bhāgavata would seem to have been appropriate to describe a wide range of groups who engaged in the worship of some form of Vaiṣṇava deity, while Pañcarātra appears to have denoted a specific ritual system that may or may not have had its own peculiar theology. For the purposes of this paper it will be assumed that during the period in question all Pañcarātrins were Bhāgavatas, but not all Bhāgavatas were necessarily Pañcarātrins.
The Cosmology of the Kapilagītā
The Sāṃkhya teaching given in the third book of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa is presented as the teaching of the sage Kapila as it was given to his mother Devahūti. Like all Sāṃkhya systems the Bhāgavata Purāṇa posits a fundamental dichotomy between two basic principles, Puruṣa and Prakṛti. The Puruṣa is beginningless and attributeless,
“distinct from and superior to Prakṛti.”50 The Puruṣa seems to be identified with
Bhagavān who associates himself with prakṛti as part of his līlā, or play.51 Prakṛti is also
50 Ganesh Vasudeo Tagare, trans., Bhāgavata Purāṇa vol.1 (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1976), 3.26.3.
51 The Bhāgavata [Śrīmad Bhāgavata Mahapurāṇa]. Critical Edition. Vol. 1 [Skandhas I to III]. Critically edited by H.G. Shastri. (Ahmedabad: BJ Institute of Learning and Research, 1996), 3.26.4. 25 eternal and initially exists with its three guṇas; sattva, rajas, and tamas in a state of equilibrium. Prakṛti is incapable of acting alone and only begins to evolve its twenty-four tattvas, or principles, when it comes into contact with Puruṣa. Interestingly, the
Bhāgavata refers to Brahman not as the supreme principle as in Vedānta, but instead as the sum total of the evolutionary process of prakṛti. “The learned know Brahman as comprising of the effects of Pradhāna – a collection of 24 principles 5 tanmātrās, 5 mahābhūtas, 4 internal organs, 10 sense organs (5 cognitive and 5 conative organs).
There are only five gross elements (mahābhūtas)”.52 The precise order in which these twenty-four tattvas is as follows; mahat (also referred to as citta) is produced from the unmanifest (avyakta) prakṛti and then gives rise to the threefold ahaṃkāra.53 In each one of these ahaṃkāras one of the three guṇas is dominant; in vaikārika-ahaṃkāra sattva, in taijasa-ahaṃkāra rajas, and in tāmasa-ahaṃkāra tamas, from these the remaining tattvas are produced.54 The vaikārika-ahaṃkāra produces manas55 The taijasa-ahaṃkāra produces buddhi, the ten indriyas (cognitive and conative sense organs), as well as prāṇa
(which is properly speaking not one of the tattvas).56 The tāmasa-ahaṃkāra produces the five tanmātras, which produce their corresponding five mahābhūtas (gross elements) in pairs. While this cosmological scheme might appear simple enough, there is much about
52 Tagare, Bhāgavata Purāṇa, 3.26.11-12.
53 Bhāgavata Purāṇa., 3.26.23.
54 Ibid., 3.26.24.
55 Ibid., 3.26.27.
56 Ibid., 3.26.29-31. 26 its details, particularly as they appear throughout the Kapilagītā which deserves a closer examination.
27
CHAPTER 1 MAJOR DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE TWO SYSTEMS
The Place of God
One element of the Sāṃkhya system in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa which is immediately evident is how overtly theistic it is. The Classical Sāṃkhya School itself is somewhat famous for being atheistic, and even though this is an oversimplification, the degree to which a more or less monotheistic deity figures into the system presented in the third book of the Bhāgavata is striking. While in what became the normative Sāṃkhya account of creation the world is the byproduct of the intermingling of two eternal substances, prakṛti and puruṣa, and thus has little need to posit a theistic cause, the
Bhāgavata presents this entire process as the direct result of God (Nārāyaṇa). Again and again God is described in terms that place him in a role superior to and necessary to the
Sāṃkhya cosmology which comprises the created universe. He is both the material and the efficient cause of the universe and thus he both creates the universe and is the universe. In addition to this he is actually both constituent parts of the Sāṃkhya cosmology since he is both the puruṣa and the prakṛti. This is all, of course, highly reminiscent of Vaiṣṇava theology in general, particularly that of the other Vaiṣṇava
Purāṇas. On the surface all of this would seem to directly contradict the Sāṃkhya philosophy, of which Kapila is ostensibly the founder, but when the evidence is examined more closely it becomes clear that the situation is significantly more complicated. In addition to this, the concepts of God, or lack thereof, in some of the related systems reveal much about the religious and philosophical climate in which the doctrines of the
Bhāgavata were formulated. 28
It is often stated with little explanation that Sāṃkhya is an atheistic system of philosophy. While this is true in a sense, it is only true for one particular brand of
Sāṃkhya which existed in a particular time, for all other formulations of Sāṃkhya the reality is far more complex and often ambiguous. The Sāṃkhya Sūtras do contain explicit refutations of the concept of a creator deity and all the texts which follow this that belong to the Sāṃkhya School proper maintain its position on the matter. However, the problem with using this text to interpret the view of Sāṃkhya as a whole is twofold. Firstly, despite the fact that it is commonly attributed to Kapila himself, the text appears to be quite late. Not only is this later than the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, it is significantly later than much of the other important early literature of the Sāṃkhya School, particularly the
Sāṃkhyakārikas and the “proto-Sāṃkhya” portions of the Mahābhārata. The second problem is that the Sāṃkhya Sūtras seem to be attempting to refute a particular sort of deity, not the notion of deities itself. What the Sāṃkhya Sūtras object to is that there is a creator god who supersedes the two principles which it considers to be eternally existing, prakṛti and puruṣa. It has theorized that such arguments reflect a worldview that is actually thoroughly polytheistic in outlook not atheistic. While the gods and other heavenly entities are assumed to exist they, like humans, are understood to be finite and, though long-lived, subject to periodic death and rebirth. The world itself does not, and cannot have a creator as it has always existed and presumably always will. The gods are, therefore, part of the system and do not exist outside of it as the creator god of the monotheistic systems does.57 This is, of course, quite at odds with the system that is presented in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa in which the universe is cyclically created and
57 Knut A. Jacobsen, Kapila: Founder of Sāṃkhya and Avatāra of Viṣṇu (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 2008), 52-53. 29 destroyed and created again by a single eternally existing deity who is not subject to any of the transformations of the physical world. If the philosophy of this text did represent the definitive Sāṃkhya system it would be quite a simple case of the two versions of
Sāṃkhya (that of the Sūtras and that of the Bhāgavata) obviously disagreeing with one another. However, a closer analysis of some of the earlier Sāṃkhya literature shows that the situation is not nearly this clear.
The Sāṃkhyakārikas do not actually have anything to say about God. They are conspicuously silent on the issue and contain no arguments against God’s existence. As tempting as it may be to simply assume the author of the Kārikas agreed with the author of the Sūtras but did not feel the need to argue about it, the absence of any definitive statement on the problem cannot be counted as evidence for either position. Īśvarakṛṣṇa might have denied the existence of a creator, but it is simply not possible to know one way or another.
A more interesting picture emerges when one looks at the commentarial tradition for the Sāṃkhyakārikas. The Sāṃkhyakārikabhāṣya of Gauḍapāda rarely brings up Īśvara
(or any other name that might be construed as a creator deity), but potential arguments are countered on two occasions. The first is on kārika 27 where it is argued that Īśvara is not the cause of diversity as some have apparently theorized.58 The second is the commentary on kārika 61 where a more explicit argument about creation is given; “How can beings with qualities proceed from Īśvara who is devoid of qualities?” And again
“Īśvara is without qualities: therefore the production of the worlds endowed with qualities
58 Mainkar, 81. 30 from Him is not logical.”59 As is clear from these examples Gauḍapāda does not actually argue against the existence of Īśvara, only whether or not Īśvara created the world. In fact, from the second example it seems clear that Gauḍapāda actually accepts the existence of
Īśvara as he seems to have some definite ideas about what the nature of Īśvara is. The
Chinese translation of the Suvarṇasptati mostly follows that of Gauḍapāda; though it also maintains in its commentary on kārika 31 that in addition to puruṣa’s status as a non- agent, Īśvara is also a non-agent. It does not argue that Īśvara does not exist though.60 In much the same way, Vācaspatimiśra argues against the belief that Īśvara is the cause of the universe in the Sāṃkhyatattvakaumudi. In his commentary on kārikas 56 and 57 he states that the Sāṃkhyas deny that Īśvara could possibly be the cause of the universe, but he never actually presents an argument against the existence of such a being. In fact, it would almost seem that he assumes Īśvara’s existence as his argument is concerned primarily with how the nature of Īśvara is incompatible with his having created the world.
He maintains that such arguments also necessarily ascribe emotions such as self-interest or compassion to Īśvara; things that he could not possibly have.61 The Yuktdīpikā largely agrees with the other commentaries, though it is quite a bit more systematic in its
59 Ibid., 154.
60 M. Takakusu, The Samkhya Karika Studied in Light of Its Chinese Version, trans. SS Suryanarayana Sastri (Madras: Diocesan Press, 1933), 40-41.
61 Larson, Sāṃkhya, 311.
Vācaspatimiśra, Sāṃkhyatattva-Kaumudī (Sanskrit Text with English Translation), ed. Gangānāth Jhā (Delhi: Bhārtīya Buk Kārporeshan), 100-103. 31 refutation of the notion that Īśvara created the world. He also elaborates on this and maintains that Īśvara actually takes on a body in order to teach Sāṃkhya to the world.62
The general opinion about the relationship between the schools of Sāṃkhya and
Pātañjala Yoga is that they are basically related and only contain some minor doctrinal differences. In later works, particularly the Sarvadarśanasaṁgraha, the primary difference between Sāṃkhya and Yoga is said to be that Yoga is seśvara (with God) and
Sāṃkhya is nirīśvara (without God). In a general way this is true, particularly in the post-
11th century articulations of these philosophies. The Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali certainly include Īśvara in their system and even recommend a form of devotion to or meditation on Īśvara as a means of liberation. They state that “[concentration] is attained by devotion to the Īśvara. Untouched by hindrances or karmas or fruition or by latent-deposits the
Īśvara is a special kind of self.”63 This means that Īśvara is not fundamentally different from individual selves (puruṣas), but is simply a special sort of puruṣa. Vyāsa comments that what makes Īśvara special from other puruṣas is that he has the distinction of never having been in bondage to prakṛti; thus, he is eternally liberated. This is very different from what most mean when they use the word “God”. Īśvara is not the creator of the world and seems to have very little to do with it, though it is stated in the commentaries that, much like in the Yuktidīpikā, Īśvara takes a body in order to teach the knowledge that can bring about liberation.64 Īśvara’s primary purpose seems to be as an object of devotion for the practitioner; an example to meditate on that will facilitate liberation.
62 Johannes Bronkhorst, “God in Sāṃkhya,” Wiener Zietschrift fur die Kunde Sudasians 27 (1983), 151- 154.
63 Patañjali, Yoga Sutras, trans. James Haughton Woods (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2003), 1.23-24.
64 Ibid. 32
What is particularly interesting about these arguments concerning a God, or Īśvara as he is identified in the Sāṃkhya texts is that, as noted, they do not argue that Īśvara does not exist, they merely argue that he is not the cause of creation. This is striking because this is precisely the view of Īśvara that nearly everyone agrees is presented in the
Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali. This is even more significant when one takes into account the fact that all of these commentaries on the Sāṃkhyakārikas mention the yamas and niyamas, which are a fundamental doctrine of the system taught in the Yoga Sūtras. This is also precisely the point at which the Pātañjala System’s belief in Īśvara becomes important as devotion to Īśvara is listed as one of the yamas. In actuality, this appears to be his primary function within this system, which makes the designation of Sāṃkhya as the nirīśvara system and Yoga as seśvara version of Sāṃkhya that is favored by later systematizers extremely problematic as there does not appear to be that great of a difference between the two. In their earliest forms, both schools were actually theistic, though neither accepted the existence of a creator God.
In his Ṣaḍdarśanasamuccaya the 8th century Jain writer Haribhadra makes reference to two different sorts of Sāṃkhya, “Some Sāṃkhyas are without God, some have God as their deity.”65 While it might be assumed that this verse is simply explaining the difference between the Yoga School and the Sāṃkhya School there is reason to believe it is not nearly as simple as this. From the above it should be clear that though the
Sāṃkhya School denied the existence of a creator god, it did not deny the existence of
God or gods in general. In fact, it seems more likely that the existence of God was assumed by most Sāṃkhyas and it was only the belief that God was the cause of the world which was denied. This would mean that Haribhadra was probably simply
65 Bronkhorst, “God in Sāṃkhya,” 157. 33 explaining that there were some Sāṃkhya followers who held the notion of a creator and some who did not. Though this is probably what Haribhadra has in mind, the principle commentary on the Ṣaḍdarśanasamuccaya by Guṇaratna further complicates the matter.
Guṇaratna plausibly interprets the verse as meaning that some Sāṃkhyas have Īśvara as their object of worship (devatā) and some others do not, which would imply that these other Sāṃkhyas have someone else as their principle deity. He glosses the verse with
“And there are those who are without God, their deity (deva) is Nārāyaṇa.”66 In this context the implication would seem to be that for Guṇaratna, Īśvara does not refer to
“The Lord” in general, but instead to Śiva and that some Sāṃkhyas are worshippers of him while others worship Nārāyaṇa. This is not implausible as a number of the Sāṃkhya texts would seem to be referring to Īśvara in more or less Śaiva iconographic terms while a number of texts, the Bhagavadgītā and much of the Mokṣadharma for instance, seem to posit Nārāyaṇa or some other Vaiṣṇava deity as the supreme principle.
It should be obvious by now that what one means when using the word “God” is not always entirely clear. This is especially true in the case of Sāṃkhya where systematic explanations of what exactly is meant by terms such as Īśvara are rarely given. In general there can be said to be two sorts of God in these Sāṃkhya and Sāṃkhya-like systems.
There is a God who creates and a God who does not create; a God who is different from both prakṛti and puruṣa and a God who is not. The Classical Sāṃkhya and Yoga systems denied the God who creates the world and denied that there was anything that might be considered different from or above prakṛti and puruṣa. For the most part the Purāṇas, tantric texts, and most of the Sāṃkhya portions of the Mokṣadharma took the opposite view. God is fundamentally different from all other tattvas and he is the creator of the
66 Ibid. 34 world. He is the controller of both prakṛti and puruṣa. This is the position that the
Bhāgavata Purāṇa takes.
Some have argued that Sāṃkhya is actually incomprehensible as a system without something above prakṛti and puruṣa that can account for their association in the first place.67 However, it is unclear that this is necessarily true. The Classical system appears to be coherent, though probably not very appealing to modern ears. What is true is that some of the earliest texts that discuss Sāṃkhya philosophy at all appear to be quite theistic, and in a way that the Sāṃkhya of the Kārikas simply is not.
The number of texts that utilize a Sāṃkhya cosmology and envision a personal
God who is the creator of the system and is intimately involved with its preservation is simply too large to discuss. Obviously the Bhagavadgītā is an exemplary specimen, but there are a huge number of such texts, particularly from the Vaiṣṇava tradition which is of prime importance for a discussion of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. A good example of this sort of text can be found in the Mokṣadharma, which is certainly older than the
Bhāgavata. Following a lengthy discussion of Sāṃkhya and Yoga this dialogue includes the following; “The exalted Nārāyaṇa supports the whole, immeasurable Body of Total
Knowledge, king. I have declared to you, O God among men, this fundamental reality.
Nārāyaṇa issues this entire primordial knowledge at the time of creation and he swallows it again at the time he draws the world back in.”68
The Bhāgavata’s theism may not exactly preserve an original theistic Sāṃkhya, but it certainly preserves elements of it. Likely sources include texts like the
67 K.B. Ramakrishna Rao, Theism of Pre-Classical Sāṃkhya (Mysore: Prasaranga, 1966), 90-91.
68 Quoted in, James Fitzgerald, “The Sāṃkhya-Yoga “Manifesto” at MBh 12.289-290,” Proceedings from the Thirteenth World Sanskrit Conference, 28. 35
Bhagavadgītā and proto-Sāṃkhya ideas that are not as well preserved. The literature that hints at these ideas is extensive, so there was most likely quite popular. In general, this form of theistic Sāṃkhya that is found in the Bhāgavata is not all that extraordinary as the transcendent monotheistic deity is a central component to the well-known Purāṇic cosmology.69 Obviously the Pañcarātra texts present a theistic, Vaiṣṇava version of
Sāṃkhya as well. The Bhāgavata’s conception of God is extremely similar to Pañcarātra, but since the history of Pañcarātra is obscure it is unclear whether Pañcarātra as we have it now is the source of the Bhāgavata’s doctrine, or whether they represent two similar attempts at a synthesis of Sāṃkhya philosophy with an earlier, non-Sāṃkhya, form of the
Bhāgavata religion. Though the presence of a Sāṃkhya system that is so overwhelmingly theistic may seem strange, particularly in the middle of a text that is well-known for its devotional character, it should not. It is not at all strange that a Vaiṣṇava text includes a version of theistic Sāṃkhya as this is precisely what the cosmologies of most Vaiṣṇava texts consist of. The thing that is strange is that this system is placed in the mouth of
Kapila, the purported founder of the nirīśvara Sāṃkhya School who one would think would have been placed in a position of dubious orthodoxy by most Vaiṣṇavas.
Kapila
The fact that the Sāṃkhya system of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa is delivered by Kapila is quite a striking departure from the other Purāṇas. While it is true that nearly all of the
Mahāpurāṇas include Sāṃkhya teachings, the Bhāgavata is the only one which provides a lengthy account of a philosophy called Sāṃkhya and places it in the mouth of Kapila.
For instance, the Brahmā Purāṇa contains a teaching that is explicitly identified as
69 Madeleine Biardeau, “Some Remarks on the Links Between The Epics, the Purāṇas and Their Vedic Sources,” in Studies in Hinduism: Vedism and Hinduism, ed. Gerhard Oberhammer (Wien: Verlag, 1997), 120-121. 36
Sāṃkhya, but it is delivered by Vyāsa, not Kapila.70 Kapila is the sage who was traditionally thought to have originated the Sāṃkhya School, by both those within the school and those who were not. The use of Kapila in this account serves to immediately link the Bhāgavata Purāṇa to the Sāṃkhya School in a rather unique way, as well as to the distinctively Vaiṣṇava uses of the character of Kapila in the centuries preceding its composition. In many ways however, the version of Kapila that appears in the Bhāgavata is at odds with the picture of Kapila that one finds when examining the texts of the
Sāṃkhya School.
Although in later literature Kapila is thought of as an ancient sage who apparently actually lived at some point in the historical past, the earliest references to him are much more ambiguous. The earliest surviving references to Kapila appear to be the
Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad and the Baudhāyana Dharmasūtra. The word Kapila literally means reddish brown in color, and it is often suggested that it is in this sense, not in reference to a personage, that the early instances of the word were intended. The verse appears in a description of “the one who rules over both knowledge and ignorance.”71 It is said this one “alone presides over womb after womb, and thus over all visible forms and all the sources of birth; who in the beginning carried this Kapila born of the seer together with his body of knowledge and would look on him as he was being born.”72
What this actually means is anyone’s guess, but it is hardly a solid foundation for an historical Kapila. Bronkhorst suggests that much of the confusion about this reference is
70 Brahmā Purāṇa Vol.1, trans. A Board of Scholars, Ancient Indian Tradition and Mythology Series 33 (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1985), 1.127-137.
71 Olivelle, Early Upaniṣads, 5.1.
72 Ibid., 5.2. 37 related to the reluctance to identify Kapila with Hiraṇyagarbha as this makes little sense if Kapila is supposed to be a human sage. He argues that when all of the early evidence is examined, it is actually more natural to understand Kapila as a divine or semi-divine figure, rather than a liberated human.73
In the Baudhāyana Dharmasūtra it is at least clear that a personage of some sort is being described. It describes the origins of the some sort of renunciate tradition as deriving from the teachings of someone named Kapila, the son of Prahlāda.74 This brief mention is important for a number of reasons; first of all it links Kapila with renunciation.
It would also seem that this renunciation is not considered to be part of the Vedic way of life by the Brahmin authors of the text. In this instance, Kapila seems to be, at the very least, completely uninvolved with the Vedic rituals, if not openly hostile to them. This
Kapila is also said to be an Asura; not a god or even a sage, but a demonic being. In general Kapila is a figure who represents the religion of renunciation and this would not have been considered an agreeable belief system by followers of the Vedic ritual. Kapila is definitely identified with this view even in the Mahābhārata.75 It should also probably be pointed out that not all Asuras were necessarily considered to be evil per se; they were just the faction of divine beings who routinely lost to the Devas. Even in the Upaniṣads there are figures who are understood to be Asuras who are portrayed as being the source of quite advanced mystical teachings.
73 Bronkhorst, Greater Magadha, 63.
74 Olivelle, Āśrama System, 98.
75 Johannes Bronkhorst, The Two Sources of Indian Asceticism (Bern: Peter Lang, 1993), 72. 38
A great number of the earliest references to Kapila, contrary to him being a demonic figure, present him as being a divine, or at least semi-divine, entity. The
Buddhacarita of Aśvaghoṣa, which lays out a form of theistic Sāṃkhya (or at the very least a form of Sāṃkhya in which there is only a single Puruṣa) actually identifies Kapila with the kṣetrajña, the Puruṣa itself, “Kapila with his pupils, tradition says, is the
Conscious in this system; Prajapati with his sons is said to be the Unconscious in this system.”76 It also gives him a position that seems to be higher even than that of
Prajāpati.77
There are numerous references to Kapila in the Mahābhārata, most of them in the
Śāntiparvan. It is very clear throughout that Kapila is not simply a man who has worked out a particularly brilliant philosophy. He is a divine figure and he is identified with a variety of different gods. For instance, at one point Kapila is described in terms that seem to be quite human, but then is identified as Prajāpati; “There was one individual among the seers who, they say, avoided the sensual pleasures of men while searching for that final, eternal bliss so hard to attain: the Sāṃkhya followers call him Kapila, as well as
Prajapati, the supreme seer.”78 Kapila is also identified with Kṛṣṇa79 and Nārāyaṇa.80
Two of the more notable examples of Kapila in the Mokṣadharma illustrate just how odd this character really is. The first of these does not even really concern Kapila
76 Patrick Olivelle, trans., Life of the Buddha by Aśvaghoṣa, Clay Sanskrit Library (New York: New York University Press and JJC Foundation, 2008), 335.
77 Bronkhorst, Two sources of Indian Asceticism, 68.
78 Alexander Wynne, trans., Mahābhārata Book 12, Vol.3 Clay Sanskrit Library (New York University Press, 2009), 385. 218.8-9.
79 MBh 12.43.12. Jacobsen, 18.
80 MBh 12.326.64. Jacobsen, 19. 39 himself, but his students. It is said that Āsuri, an ascetic, sat in the “great brotherhood of
Kapila” and that by so doing achieved the supreme goal.81 Notice that it is not at all clear that Kapila himself had anything to do with this, only his “great brotherhood”. The case of Āsuri’s student Pañcaśikha, which follows immediately after this, is even more perplexing. The text recounts how “His disciple Panchashikha was raised on the milk of a certain Brahmin woman called Kapila. Panchashikha became her son, and used to drink from her breast. Hence he became a son of Kapilā and eventually attained the highest understanding.”82 This is obviously an extremely perplexing image and it is not at all certain what this means. Some have theorized that it may actually be an attempt to explain symbolically the incorporation of the rival Pañcaśikha School into the lineage of
83 Kapila Sāṃkhya. An even stranger example can be found at 12.260-262 in which the sage Kapila has a conversation with a cow that is on its way to be slaughtered. The content of the discussion is concerned with renunciation and the uselessness of Vedic ritual, particularly ritual which takes the life of other creatures.84 What is noteworthy in these examples is what Kapila does not seem to do, and that is explain Sāṃkhya philosophy to anyone. In fact, the only person this Kapila even talks to in the whole of the Mahābhārata is not a person at all; it is a cow.
In terms of the Sāṃkhya-Yoga School itself, the character Kapila is quite a complex figure. The Sāṃkhyakārikas do not mention Kapila by name. They refer to him
81 Wynne, 387.
82 Ibid., 218.15.
83 Jacobsen 20.
,84 Ibid., 16-17. 40 only as paramarṣi (great seer)85 and as the muni (sage) who imparts this knowledge out of compassion.86 Generally the commentaries on the Kārikas agree with one another that
Kapila is much more than just a simple human teacher. They also tend to connect Kapila with their notions of God, which have already been discussed. The Chinese translation of
Paramārtha’s commentary on the first kārika states that “There was formerly a wise ascetic called Kapila, born of heaven”87 The Sāṃkhyakārikabhāṣya of Gauḍapāda adds that Kapila is a son of Brahmā (one of seven)88 and adds that Kapila came into being at the same time as the creation of the world. A fact that makes little sense if he is supposed to be a normal human.89 The Yuktidīpikā is clear that although Īśvara is not the creator of the world and has the distinction of never having been in bondage to prakṛti he still is able to take on various kinds of material bodies. One of these is that of the īśvaramarṣi, the great seer who is Īśvara. It is pretty clear that what is meant here is Kapila.90
The commentarial tradition on the Yoga Sūtras is virtually identical to that of
Sāṃkhya. If anything it is even more inclined to associate Kapila with a deity. The primary place where this is discussed is on 1.25, one of the places where Īśvara is explicitly discussed. The Yogabhāṣya states that Īśvara takes a form in order to teach and that his student was Āsuri. Given the fact that Āsuri is unanimously said to be Kapila’s
85 Mainkar, kār., 69.
86 Ibid., 70.
87 Takakusu, 1.
88 Mainkar, 1.
89 Ibid., 116.
90 Bronkhorst, “God in Sāṃkhya,” 152-153. 41 student, there can be little doubt that his presence is implied here.91 Vācaspati confirms this and elaborates on it a bit, claiming that Kapila is actually an incarnation of Viṣṇu.92 It is worth noting that traditionally the Yoga system is said to have originated with
Hiraṇyagarbha (i.e. Brahmā) while Sāṃkhya is said to have been taught by Kapila. Given the close connection between these two Schools these two figures are often grouped together and mentioned in a way that implies they are equals.93 This makes little sense if
Kapila is assumed to have been a man, but if he is a manifestation of Īśvara, it suddenly becomes much more clear. From all of this it would seem that the Sāṃkhya and Yoga traditions maintained a set of systematic beliefs about Kapila’s nature. Kapila was the incorporation of Īśvara, and Īśvara was understood to be the Self of Kapila.94
However, by far the most numerous references to Kapila, particularly in the literature that does not belong to the Sāṃkhya or Yoga Schools, are to Kapila the sage.
These tend to present something of a problem though as there is a great deal of contradictory information regarding this figure. By far the most common story associated with this Kapila is that of the burning of the sons of Sagara. This story can be found in multiple sources; the Rāmāyaṇa (1.37-41), Mahābhārata (3.104-220), and in a number of
Purāṇas. Though there is a great deal of variation between versions of this story, the basic elements are as follows. Sagara does penance and receives sixty thousand sons. After some time Sagara is performing the horse sacrifice and the sacrificial animal goes
91 Patañjali, 56.
92 Ibid., 59.
93 Jacobsen, 20.
94 Bronkhorst, “God in Sāṃkhya,” 159. 42 missing. Sagara’s sons go looking for the horse and eventually find it with the sage
Kapila whose penance they disturb at which point he uses his yogic powers to burn them all alive.95 This Kapila seems to be far removed from the Kapila of the Sāṃkhya tradition. He is a violent figure in opposition to the ahimsa of the Sāṃkhya School, and he appears to at the very least tolerate the Vedic sacrifice as he eventually gives up the animal so that the ritual can be completed.
Whether or not this was originally intended to refer to the same person is difficult to know. Obviously the name Kapila could be referring to a number of different people who just happen to share the same name. Śaṅkara actually recognizes the apparent contradiction between the two Kapilas and in his Brahmāsūtrabhāśya on 2.1.1 and attempts to split Kapila into two distinct people; Kapila who is the founder of Sāṃkhya, and a Kapila who is an incarnation of Viṣṇu. He identifies the avatāra as the same figure who burned the sons of Sagara.96 Despite this, the fact remains that a number of people disagreed with Śaṅkara on this point and all of the Kapilas were often thought of as the same person. Though this may not have been the original intent, all of the different
Kapilas must be considered in relation to one another to arrive at a complete picture of later interpretations of the figure.
Of course the Bhāgavata Purāṇa also presents Kapila as an avatāra, but this is within a purely Vaiṣṇava context. However, this association of Kapila with Viṣṇu did not begin with the Bhāgavata Purāṇa and can be found in a number of other sources. A few
Purāṇas identify Kapila as an avatāra, most notably the Viṣṇu Purāṇa, which, as has
95 Bronkhorst, Greater Magadha, 64.
96 V. M. Apte, trans., Brahma-Sūtra Shānkara-Bhāshya: Bādarāyaṇā’s Brahma-Sūtrās with Shankarāchārya’s Commentary (Bombay: Popular Book Depot, 1960), 278. 43 been noted, was a major source for the Bhāgavata. The Viṣṇu Purāṇa states that "The Ṛṣi
Kapila is a portion of the mighty and universal Viṣṇu, who has come down upon the earth to dissipate delusion".97 Despite the fact that in Sāṃkhya sources Kapila appears to have been born at the same time the world was created, the Bhāgavata claims that Kapila is the son of Kardama and Devahūti, the aṃśa (portion) of the Lord. The Devībhāgavata
Purāṇa confirms this; “by Maharṣi Kardama, in the womb of Devahūti was born the
Bhagavān Kapila Deva, the famous author of the Sāṅkhya Śāstra.”98 The Mātharavṛtti commentary on the Sāṃkhya Kārikas also seems to be aware of this tradition.99 However, in the form in which this text currently exists it does appear to be dependent on the
Bhāgavata Purāṇa as it quotes from it, thus making it unlikely that it is the source of this tradition.
The real question becomes one of which Kapila the authors of the Bhāgavata are intending to portray. Is this meant to be the Kapila who taught Sāṃkhya to Āsuri or the
Kapila who burned the sons of Sagara, or a different Kapila altogether, or perhaps all of these? Apart from the Purāṇic sources there are a number of references to Kapila in literature that are closely related to the Bhāgavata that may actually help to clarify the situation. Kapila is mentioned in the Bhagavadgītā where Kṛṣṇa states that he is
Kapila.100 This reference is, of course, not entirely helpful. It occurs in a lengthy passage in which Kṛṣṇa appears to be equating himself as the superlative member of a number of
97 H.H., Wilson, trans., The Viṣṇu Purāṇam (Delhi: Parimal Publications, 2002), 215.
98 Swami Vijayanand, trans., Devībhāgavata (Delhi: Chaukhamba Sanskrit Pratishtan, 2008), 8.3.13-14.
99 Larson, Sāṃkhya, 292.
100 J.A.B. van Buitenen, trans., The Bhagavadgītā in the Mahābhārata: Text and Translation (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1981), 10.26. 44 different groups such as the lion among wild animals or the Gāyatrī meter among poetic meters. Kapila then may not have any special relationship to Kṛṣṇa in this verse other than the fact that he is the most prominent representative of the category of siddhas. Knut
Jacobsen has argued that this reference is actually not to the Kapila who is associated with Sāṃkhya in the later books of the Mahābhārata, but refers instead to the violent sage Kapila who appears only in the earlier books. He bases this theory on the fact that the two Kapila figures appear exclusively in two places. The violent sage Kapila who burns the sons of Sagara appears only before the battle, while Kapila the teacher of
Sāṃkhya appears only after the battle. He argues that since the Bhagavadgītā also appears before the battle and ideologically does not accept the ahiṃsā of the Kapila who teaches Sāṃkhya, that it is the other Kapila who is meant.101 Whether this is true or just some fascinating speculation is hard to know, but it remains an interesting theory.
In addition to this there are quite a few places in sectarian Vaiṣṇava literature where Kapila is given a prominent place. Interestingly, in most of these places Kapila does not seem to be associated with Sāṃkhya or any other teaching, but instead appears to be revered as a prominent divine or semi-divine sage. This Kapila seems more like an example to which ascetics might aspire. If the Bhagavadgītā is the basis for these ideas
(which seems like a likely possibility) it is quite possible that it is, in fact, the violent sage which was meant by the Bhagavadgītā. The Mahābhārata also makes it clear that when
Viṣṇu appears on the earth he appears as Kapila. This is explicitly in reference to the violent sage Kapila as it is explained in the context of the story of the burning of Sagara’s sons.102 In the Rāmāyaṇa Kapila the sage is actually called Vāsudeva,103 and the in
101 Jacobsen, 22-24. 102 Ibid., 13-14. 45
Brahmā Purāṇa it is stated that Viṣṇu (here the supreme deity) was sleeping in the guise of Kapila.104
Given all of these references it might be expected that Kapila would form an essential part of the Pañcarātra scriptures, but this is not really the case. He is occasionally mentioned as a siddha, but in general is not given a prominent position.
These references are most likely to the sage who burned the sons of Sagara as well. The
Pañcarātras do not generally reference Sāṃkhya as a separate system, but when they do they are generally opposed to it. The story related above about Pañcaśikha provides a tantalizing possibility about the original links between the two systems however.
Pañcaśikha, who is also called Kāpileya, is said to have been skilled in the practice of
“five nights” (pañcarātra).105 This may be a clue to the origin of Pañcarātra as a form of theistic Vaiṣṇava Sāṃkhya, but there is simply not enough evidence to confirm or deny this.
The situation is further complicated by the name of one of the poets associated with the Tamil Caṅkam literature, Kapilar. There has long been a tradition that Kapila actually came from the Tamil-speaking regions, though only by those who live in the
South. There seem to be a number of poets who were known by the name Kapilar and there is actually a work which appears to teach Sāṃkhya-like ideas, the Kapilar Akaval.
Most scholars consider this to be a late work, but it does show that there were at least traditions about Kapilar in the South of India and these may very well have played some
103 Brockington, 461.
104 Brahmā Purāṇa, 6.55.
105 Wynne, 387. 46 role in the composition of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa given its probable Southern authorship.106
What, then, can be concluded about this about all of this? Which Kapila is it that the Bhāgavata Purāṇa is speaking of? On the one hand it is clear that the text means to link its Kapila with the Sāṃkhya philosophy as his primary purpose in the text is to expound the Bhāgavata’s own peculiar brand of Sāṃkhya. Even so, the Bhāgavata retains a number of elements of this character that are incongruous with such an understanding. The Bhāgavata actually does contain the story of the burning of Sagara’s sons, complete with Kapila.107 This Kapila appears to be identical with the Kapila of the third book. In general Kapila also seems to be immortal (at least until the dissolution of the universe at the end of the present world-cycle). It seems then that the authors of the
Bhāgavata Purāṇa do not make a distinction between these different Kapilas. Whether or not they were originally the same character is, of course, mere speculation, but in the case of the Bhāgavata itself these seemingly contradictory figures are harmonized to create a single sage who is the teacher of Sāṃkhya as well as an incarnation of Viṣṇu. The Kapila of the Bhāgavata does not, however, represent a unique creation, but is instead the result of a long process of the evolution of the character, likely coming from a wide variety of sources; Sāṃkhya-Yoga, sectarian Vaiṣṇava literature, Purāṇic and epic accounts, and possibly even a separate Tamil tradition.
106 S.N. Kandaswamy, “The Philosophical Aspects of Paripāṭal,” in Philosophical Heritage of the Tamils, ed. S.V. Subramanian and R. Vijayalakshmy (Madras: International Institute of Tamil Studies, 1983), 120.
107 Bhāgavata Purāṇa, 9.8 47
Puruṣa
The most fundamental difference between the Sāṃkhya of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa and Classical Sāṃkhya is to be found in their formulation of the Puruṣa.108 In general,
Classical Sāṃkhya taught that there is a multitude of puruṣas, something that is explicitly stated in the Sāṃkhyakārikas “The souls are many since birth, death and the instruments of cognition and action allotted severally, since occupations are not simultaneous and at once universe; since the three Attributes affect severally.”109 Obviously this is not an entirely convincing argument, but it is clear that what is meant here is that there are as many puruṣas as there are individual selves. The commentarial tradition on the
Sāṃkhyakārikas agrees with this, but adds little of substance besides directing the same argument towards other theoretical schools. The Pātañjala Yoga School seems to assume the same.110
It is worth pointing out that despite this homogeneity there are indications that in the period preceding the composition of the Sāṃkhyakārikas there was not nearly so much agreement and that a number of different proto-Sāṃkhya teachers and schools (or sub-schools) had a number of opinions on the matter before the time in which many puruṣas and a single prakṛti was agreed upon.111
In contrast to this the Bhāgavata Purāṇa teaches that ultimately there is only one
Puruṣa, though on a phenomenal level it is perceived as a multitude. This Puruṣa is
108 Dasgupta, 32.
109 Mainkar, kār., 18.
110 Larson, Yoga, 89.
111 Andrew J. Nicholson, Unifying Hinduism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010), 133. 48 understood to be either a manifestation of Bhagavān or the Bhagavān himself. According to the 26th chapter of the third book there is only a single Puruṣa, transcendent to prakṛti which “shines forth” as all the individual souls.112 Though it is discussed in a rather confusing way, there are a number of places where poetic allusions are used in order to convey the truth that although there might appear to be numerous puruṣas, there is really only one, revealing itself as the individual jīvas. “Just as the one fire manifests as many according to the difference of the fuel in which it manifests, so also the one Supreme
Spirit abiding in Prakṛti manifests differently as innumerable centres of consciousness
(Jīvas).”113 The Puruṣa cannot act, but mistakes itself for the agent and thus becomes bound by karma; blinded by the power of ignorance of the prakṛti it acts as the individual jīvas.114
It could be argued that this difference between the two notions of puruṣa is due to the fact that the Sāṃkhya of the Bhāgavata is largely a cosmological system (just as it is in most of the other Purāṇic accounts). While this is true up to a point, it fails to recognize that the function of Sāṃkhya itself as a philosophy was largely cosmological as well as the somewhat unique and nuanced position of the Sāṃkhya of the Bhāgavata when compared to that of the other Purāṇas. The various Purāṇas place different emphasis on the Sāṃkhya cosmology, often changing its doctrine slightly or using it to present vastly different theologies. For the most part the other Purāṇas are far more likely to agree with the Bhāgavata than the Classical Sāṃkhya system is. This is particularly
112 Dasgupta, 24.
113 Tapasyananda, Swami, trans, Srimad Bhagavata: The Holy Book of God, Vol. 1 (Madras: Sri Ramakrishna Math, 1980), 3.28.43.
114 Dasgupta, 24. 49 true in the case of the Puruṣa. The singular Puruṣa who enters the formless prakṛti is a fundamental component of the Purāṇic cosmology. The Puruṣa is the Supreme God
(whoever that may be according to the particular Purāṇa) who is totally inactive and removed from the world, but somehow present in everything, down to the grossest tattvas.115
Despite this general usages of the Puruṣa concept in the Purāṇas in general, there is an incredibly close connection between the Vaiṣṇava traditions and the Puruṣa. This connection appears to stretch all the way back to Vedic literature, particularly Ṛgveda
10.90, the Puruṣa-sūkta. In this hymn the whole of the universe is described as the body of a cosmic man. This text has been called “the major source of cosmogonic thought in ancient India” as well as “the foundation stone of Viṣṇuite philosophy”.116 These descriptions ring true as the imagery used in this hymn gets repeated over and over again throughout Indian literature and in Vaiṣṇava devotional literature in particular. Very quickly this figure of the cosmic man appears to have become identified with Viṣṇu,
Nārāyaṇa, or the other names which came to denote the Vaiṣṇava supreme deity. For instance, the Maitrī Upaniṣad identifies the transcendent Puruṣa of its system with
Viṣṇu.117
The tension that seems to exist between the traditional Sāṃkhya-Yoga understanding of the Puruṣa and the Puruṣa that is found in more devotional texts
(particularly Vaiṣṇava devotional texts) is highlighted in the Nārāyaṇīya. Following a
115 Biardeau, 127-128.
116 Bronkhorst, Greater Magadha, 212-213.
117 David Gordon White, Sinister Yogis (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 95. 50 lengthy discussion of the worship of Nārāyaṇa, Janamejaya asks “are there many
Purushas or is there only one? Who, in the universe, is the foremost of Purushas? What, again, is said to be the source of all things?”118 This would seem to be a natural question to ask as it gets to the heart of much of what is confusing about Vaiṣṇava theology.
Terminology, and often whole portions of Sāṃkhya and Yoga philosophy are used extensively, but the traditional understandings of this often seem to clash quite visibly with what the Vaiṣṇava systems wish to argue for. Vaisampayana’s response to this question is even more interesting,
In the speculations of the Sankhya and the Yoga systems many Purushas have been spoken of, O jewel of Kuru’s race. Those that follow these systems do not accept that there is but one Purusha in the universe. In the same manner in which the many Purushas are said to have one origin in the Supreme Purusha, it may be said that this entire universe is identical with that one Purusha of superior attributes.119
Vaisampayana acknowledges that the Sāṃkhya and Yoga systems teach the multiplicity of Puruṣas, but he seems to be saying here that they are actually mistaken, and that there is, in reality, only one Puruṣa. Vaismpayana explains this concept further by relating a conversation that took place between Brahmā and Rudra over Rudra’s confusion about the very same problem. Brahmā informs Rudra that
[M]any are those Purushas of whom thou speakest. The one Purusha, however, of whom I am thinking, transcends all Purushas and is invisible. The many Purushas that exist in the universe have that one Purusha as their basis; and since that one Purusha is said to be the source whence all the innumerable Purushas have sprung, hence all the latter, if they succeed in divesting themselves of attributes, become competent to enter into that one Purusha who is identified with the universe, who
118 Kisari Mohan Ganguli, trans., The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa vol. 4 (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd., 2000), 198.
119 Ibid., 198-199. 51
is supreme, who is the foremost of the foremost, who is eternal, and who is himself divested of and is above all attributes.120
There is so much overlap between the description of the Puruṣa found here in the
Nārāyaṇīya and that of later Vaiṣṇava texts, particularly the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, that it is extremely unlikely that the understanding of the Puruṣa that is given in the Bhāgavata represents some form of innovation. Obviously the Nārāyaṇīya is probably not a direct source for the theology of the Bhāgavata, for one thing it is much more focused on the ritual worship of Nārāyaṇa than the Bhāgavata is and is hardly concerned with bhakti at all. However, it does seem likely that the Nārāyaṇīya represents one of the earliest surviving records of a particular sort of Vaiṣṇava theology which was expanded over time by a number of different groups and found a place in both Purāṇic Vaiṣṇavism and the scriptures of the Pañcarātra.
The Bhagavadgītā would represent another such source. While the Gītā presents some sort of fundamental distinction between the Puruṣa of Kṛṣṇa and the puruṣas of individuals, this other trend, exemplified by this portion of the Nārāyaṇīya, stresses unity.
There is, in reality only a single Puruṣa. There appear to be numerous puruṣas from the standpoint of everyday reality, but all of these singular puruṣas are in some way the same as the single Puruṣa which takes on the appearance of being many.
In the Bhagavadgītā Kṛṣṇa proposes the perplexing idea that there are three different puruṣas. To make matters worse he does not make this explicit, but merely makes reference to all three of them with no real explanation.
In this world there are two Persons, the transient and the intransient. The transient comprises all creatures, the intransient is called the One-on-the-Peak. There is yet a third Person, whom they call the Supreme Soul, the everlasting lord who
120 Ibid., 200. 52
permeates and sustains the three worlds. Inasmuch as I have passed beyond the transient and transcend the intransient, therefore I am, in world and in Veda, renowned as the Supreme Person.121
This would seem to imply that the first puruṣa is the souls of those who are in bondage, the second puruṣa is the super-soul into which the individual souls return, and the third puruṣa is Kṛṣṇa himself, transcending both of them. This has been broken down by those who have studied the text extensively as; the kṣara (perishable) puruṣa which is all beings, the akṣara (imperishable) puruṣa which is the kūṭastha, and uttama (highest) puruṣa which is the paramātman or īśvara.122 Interestingly, the Bhāgavata Purāṇa also seems to acknowledge three different puruṣas, the primordial Puruṣa who is identical with God, the puruṣa who is said to be the cosmic ahaṃkāra,123 and the individual puruṣas, the bound jīvas. There is significant overlap between these and the theology of the Pañcarātra.
The comparisons between what is said about the Puruṣa in the Kapilagītā and what is said in the Pañcarātra texts are quite striking. The Pañcarātra texts are very clear that though there might appear to be many individuals, in reality there is only one Puruṣa.
The Pañcarātra School built up an elaborate system around this concept which provides a great deal of detail that may help one to better understand the Bhāgavata Purāṇa’s somewhat cryptic statements on this subject. Overall the Pañcarātra scriptures are united in their opinion that there is, in reality only one Puruṣa. This is closely related to the
Pañcarātra belief that there is actually only one thing, as much of Pañcarātra’s
121 van Buitenen, Bhagavadgīta,, 15.17-18.
122 Vassilkov, 234-235.
123 Bhāgavata Purāṇa, 3.26.25. 53 complicated theology and cosmology is concerned with reconciling the apparent contradiction between the unity of everything and the reality of the phenomenal world.
The central fact of Pañcarātra theology is that Nārāyaṇa does not act. If this is accepted though, there is a problem, because if Nārāyaṇa does not act, why does anything happen at all? The answer to this problem is that it is Nārāyaṇa’s Śakti that acts for him, carrying out his will. Śakti is at the same time different from Nārāyaṇa and identical to him. This is a paradoxical relationship that allows everything that happens to be at the same time different from the highest God and identical to him. Śakti divides herself into a number of different combinations which then interact with one another to create the universe. The details of this are usually quite complicated, but the general facts of this are as follows. After a series of emanations from the pure Śakti a number of other śaktis are produced. One of these śaktis (in the Ahirbudhnya Sāṃhitā it is the bhūtiśakti) then divides into two, a conscious principle and an unconscious principle. The conscious principle becomes the kūṭastha puruṣa and the unconscious principle becomes māyā, which is the stuff from which the material world is made.124 The Lakṣmī Tantra explains this as follows; “I voluntarily divide myself into these two śaktis, i.e. conscious and non- conscious, to represent my two everlasting aspects. The conscious śakti is flawless and pure, consisting of consciousness and bliss. Influenced by beginningless nescience it travels unendingly (through the bondage of many lives and deaths).”125
This kūṭastha puruṣa is a strange concept, but it is the central element in the
Pañcarātra understanding of the unity of the puruṣas. The kūṭastha is thought to be
124 Pratap Kumar, The Goddess Lakṣmī: The Divine Consort in South Indian Vaiṣṇava Tradition. (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1997), 24.
125 Sanjukta Gupta, trans., Lakṣmī Tantra: A Pañcarātra Text (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1972), 3.25-26. 54 something like the aggregate of all individual souls (generally called jīvas in this system).
It is said to be like a beehive from which the jīvas come forth and act as individuals only to return again. It is the totality of all individual selves. Often the kūṭastha is described in terms that are extremely reminiscent of the Puruṣa Śukta of the Ṛgveda, the Manus coming forth from it to bring about the creation of the human race.126 This theory offers a possible explanation for one of the most perplexing aspects of the Kapilagītā, the description of the ahaṃkāra in the 26th chapter. It includes the statement that ahaṃkāra is
“the Puruṣa called Saṅkarṣana. He has actually a thousand heads and is designated as
Ananta (endless). He is the form of aggregate of bhūtas”.127 If this is intended to refer to the kūṭastha it makes a great deal of sense. The cosmic ahaṃkāra, the point of individuation, is identified with the aggregate of all individual souls, a concept that is quite fitting, though this identification is only conjecture.
What becomes clear from an examination of the third book of the Bhāgavata’s conception of the Puruṣa is that it is not at all similar to that of Classical Sāṃkhya-Yoga.
If there can be said to be two sides to the debate about how many puruṣas there are it is obvious that the Bhāgavata has chosen the opposing viewpoint. This is not surprising though. Though the Kapilagītā has the superficial signs of being a Sāṃkhya text, it has much more in common with ideas that are traditionally associated with Vaiṣṇavism and in this case it is no different.
126 F. Otto Schraeder, Introduction to the Pañcarātra and the Ahirbudhnya Saṃhitā (Madras: Adyar Library, 1916), 60-61.
127 Tagare, Bhāgavata Purāṇa, 3.26.25. 55
Kāla
Perhaps the most significant aspect of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa is its theory of Time
(kāla), particularly the way in which it relates to the underlying Sāṃkhya cosmology of the text. This is laid out most explicitly in the Kapilagītā of the third book where it is of central importance in the creation of the universe. In verse 26 Kapila explains that, “What is called ‘Time’ (Kāla) is the twenty-fifth principle.”128 He explains further in verse 29;
This is the form of the glorious Lord, the Supreme Soul, the Brahman. It is both Prakṛti and Puruṣa (and still) is also beyond them. It is the unseen destiny (daiva) which is the cause of all karmas (in the form of saṁsāra). The divine form (of the Lord) which is the cause of the differences in the appearances of things, is called Time. From it, fear is caused to beings, which entertain the notion of difference and which preside over the Mahat and others. He enters into all beings (bhūtas) and supports them all. He eats them up (annihilates them) by their means. He is called Viṣṇu, presiding deity of sacrifices who confers the fruit of the sacrifice (on the performer). He is the Time, the ruler of rulers.129
From this it would appear that Kāla is identical with Īśvara, or at the very least
Kāla is one of his powers. It is obvious from this that Kāla does not exist as one of the formations of prakṛti, but that it is different from both prakṛti and puruṣa and is, in effect its own distinct tattva. Kapila is adamant that there are only 25 tattvas and that Kāla is the 25th,130 but this does not fully account for all of the elements of this cosmology that described; specifically puruṣa and individual souls. Depending on whether or not these are counted, or how these are counted, the Kapilagītā lists 25, 26, or 27 tattvas.131
Kāla is also an important component of the philosophy of the remainder of the
128 Ibid., 3.26.15-16
129 Ibid., 3.30.36-38.
130 Ibid., 3.26.15.
131 Dasgupta, 25. 56
Bhāgavata and actually forms one of the central ideas that tie the speculations of the text into something approaching a coherent philosophy. The majority of these instances take the form of praise to Bhagavān or one of his manifestations. “You alone are the unwinking Time. You reduce the duration of the life of men by units of time called lava, nimeṣa and others. You are the immutable Soul, the occupant of the most exalted position, the birthless, all-pervading principle, the supporter and controller of all living beings.”132
Just as important are the numerous places in which Time is described as some sort of transcendental divine power which is involved in the creation of the world.133 Another particularly noteworthy example is the following; “Time is that which has for its form the modification of gunas (like sattva etc.). Of itself, it has no special property, but is beginningless and endless. Purusa (God) sportively procreated himself in the form of the universe by using Time, as the instrumental cause.”134 What is interesting about such passages is that they show how exactly the authors of the Bhāgavata actually understood
Kāla’s function in the creation of the world. It actually serves as a solution to a significant problem in Sāṃkhya philosophy. If creation only takes place when the equilibrium of the three guṇas is upset, what causes this equilibrium to be disturbed in the first place? The answer to this is not always entirely clear in Sāṃkhya thought, but the
Bhāgavata concludes that it is actually Time which is responsible for upsetting this balance and setting in motion the process of creation and that Time is the force which ultimately brings about its dissolution into the primordial equilibrium once again.
132 Tagare, Bhāgavata Purāṇa, 7.3.31
133 Ibid., 2.5.22.
134 Ibid., 3.10.11. 57
This is all, of course, contradictory to the Classical Sāṃkhya system as it is described in the Sāṃkhyakārikas, which state that "The external organ functions in the present; an internal organ functions in respect of all three times."135 For Sāṃkhya, time is only another modification of prakṛti. It has no reality outside of the material world system as the Sāṃkhyas hold that there are only really three things, puruṣas, pradhāna, and prakṛti or modifications of pradhāna. Kāla is added to this list by the system found in the Bhāgavata, but in the Classical system it is considered to be only one of the creations of the third category, prakṛti. Puruṣas, in their liberated state, have nothing to do with time and there can be no temporal substrate which is responsible for the entire process as this would admit an additional principle which Sāṃkhya is not prepared to do.
The Bhāgavata Purāṇa’s doctrine of kāla being somehow the cause of the world is not unknown to the Sāṃkhya School. In fact, they appear to be quite familiar with this view as they spend a great deal of time arguing against it. Gauḍapāda states that,
According to some Time is the cause: it is said, ‘Time rears the beings, Time withdraws the world; Time watches when all sleep, Time is not to be surpassed.’ To this the Sāṃkhyas would say: There are only three categories: the Manifest, the Unmanifest and the Knower. Time also is included under one of these. Time is manifest. Since the Nature is the cause of everything, producer, maker of everything, it must be the cause of Time also.136
The Chinese commentary on kārika 61 echoes this, claiming that kāla, along with God and svabhāva, cannot be the cause of the world since “Time does not exist; it is only a modality of the manifest world.”137 Vācaspatimiśra explains the belief that kāla is a principle that exists apart from the phenomenal experience of temporality before arguing
135 Mainkar, kār., 33.
136 Ibid., 61, 154.
137 Larson, Sāṃkhya, 177. 58 against such a thing, “"Time, according to the Vaiseshikas, being one, cannot allow such divisions as past, present, and future. Hence we must have for the various units, the various conditions or specifications to which we give the names, past, present and future.
So the Sāṅkhyas do not admit of a distinct principle in the shape of Time."138 The
Yuktidīpikā explains that “There is nothing called Time in our theory. On the contrary, it is the cause of the knowledge of the identity of a particular duration in the acts in the form of the thundering of the cloud”139 and explains that “The notion of earlier and later, etc., is observed in the case of the created objects only. If that would have been caused by something else than activity, it would be found commonly in both – the eternal and the non-eternal objects.”140 Clearly such views are not simply the individual interpretations of one or two particular writers, but represent the conventional view of the Classical
Sāṃkhya School. This means that despite the Bhāgavata’s claims that it is explaining the
Sāṃkhya system, it is actually teaching a view that is explicitly rejected by what might be termed conventional Sāṃkhya, the view that Time is a principle and that it is somehow responsible for creating the world.
The Yoga Sūtras and their commentaries present a view of Time that is quite similar to that of Sāṃkhya. This is to be expected as the two systems are related, but the concept of Time is quite a bit more developed than in Sāṃkhya. Like the Sāṃkhya
School, Yoga holds that Time is part of the reality of change (pariṇāma).141 However the
138 Mainkar, kār., 33. Vācaspatimiśra, 75.
139 Shiv Kumar and D. N. Bhargava, trans., Yuktidīpikā, Vol. 2 (Delhi: Eastern Book Linkers, 1992), 105.
140 Ibid., 106.
141 Randy Kloetzli and Alf Hiltebeitel, “Kāla,” in The Hindu World, ed. Sushil Mittal and Gene Thursby (New York and London: Routledge, 2004), 554. 59
Yoga theory of time is significantly more developed than that of the Sāṃkhya commentaries, being based on the theory of kṣaṇa (momentariness).142 Since it is quite clear that the ideas about Kāla which are found in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa cannot have come from anything resembling Classical Sāṃkhya-Yoga, it is necessary to examine competing temporal theories in order to ascertain what the Bhāgavata’s sources might have been.
In general there are two competing theories about the nature of Time. The first is exemplified by classical Sāṃkhya and Yoga and holds that Time is a product of the modifications of prakṛti and nothing more than a part of the phenomenal world. The opposing theory is holds that Time is a force or entity that transcends the world system and guides it; that Time is not a part of Nature, but is outside of Nature and acts on
Nature in order to bring about creation, maintenance, and destruction. These two views would appear to be mutually exclusive. In the Bhāgavata Purāṇa Kapila does not side with Sāṃkhya-Yoga and gives a view of Time that is nearly identical to that of the
Bhāgavata literature.
The earliest references to a transcendent or deified Kāla can be found in Atharva
Veda 19.53 and 19.54 where time is said to be the highest deity and the creator of all worlds.143 These kinds of speculation are found throughout the Upaniṣads, notably in the
Śvetāśvatara Upanṣad where Kāla is rejected as the source of the totality of the world, but still occupies a significant role in the text. Kāla is not identical with Īśvara, but does seem to be a principle that is controlled by Īśvara and through which he creates and
142 Larson, Yoga, 48.
143 Kloetzli, 555. 60 destroys.144 Another notable example can be found in the Maitrāyaṇi Upaniṣad, “Time ripens all beings in the great self. But the one who knows in what Time is ripened knows the Veda.”145 Bhartṛhari famously made reference to these speculations on time in his
Vākyapadīya, where he states that "Some consider time to be one single, eternal, all- pervading substance, apart from activities and processes, the measure of entities involved in action" and that it is the cause of the "origin, duration and destruction" of temporal beings and that it is the "wire-puller of this world machine.”146
Descriptions of Kāla that seem similar in spirit (if not in details) to those in the
Bhāgavata Purāṇa appear throughout the Epic and Purāṇic literature, particularly in texts that are now considered foundational to the Vaiṣṇava traditions. The most famous of these references to Kāla in its relationship to the supreme divinity is the Bhagavadgītā. In one of its most famous verses Kṛṣṇa proclaims that “I am Time grown old to destroy the world, embarked on the course of world annihilation.”147 Though this is a single verse, it is a very clear identification between Kṛṣṇa, here at the very least a manifestation of the supreme deity, and Kāla, particularly its destructive capacity. It is extremely likely that the Bhagavadgītā actually served as a major source of inspiration for the authors of the
Bhāgavata Purāṇa so the similarities between the two texts are to be expected. Despite the similarities in some regards between the two, there are significant differences in terms of doctrine. Though the Gītā does not directly contradict the Bhāgavata on these points, it
144 Ibid.
145 Valerie Roebuck, trans., The Upaniṣads (London: Penguin Books, 2003), 370.
146 Wilhelm Halbfass, On Being and What There Is (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 205.
147 van Buitenen, Bhagavadgītā, 117. 61 does fail to mention much that seems to be central to the Bhāgavata’s understanding of
Kāla. For instance, it is not clear how Kāla actually fits into the already murky Sāṃkhya system that is given in the Gītā. The Gītā does not refer to Kāla as a tattva and it does not appear to serve any particular purpose in its Sāṃkhya system. It also is identified exclusively with Kṛṣṇa’s destructive capacity with no mention being made of Kāla’s role in creative activity, something which is central to the Bhāgavata’s teachings on Time.
The references to Kāla in the Mokṣadharma are too numerous to discuss in full, but a number of them are quite striking. The function of Kāla as the force which sets into motion the creation of the world is found in a number of places such as the following;
“Just as the various characteristics of the seasons appear in a regular order in the course of time, so too do living beings appear whenever a world age begins. At the beginning of a world age Time impels consciousness to appear; it becomes manifests in order to regulate worldly existence.”148 The notion that Kāla is the thing within which all of creation happens is also to be found in the Mokṣadharma, complete with the image of
Kāla as the thing which cooks all of creation, “Time matures all beings by itself in itself.
But no one here on earth knows him in which Time is matured.”149 Just as fascinating, and probably most noteworthy in terms of the Mahābhārata’s relationship to the
Bhāgavata, is the fact that there are a number of places in which Kāla is explicitly related to Vaiṣṇava deities. Perhaps the most significant of these references is found at 12.335 in which Kāla is understood to be the same as the Supreme God, Nārāyaṇa, “And time
148 Wynne, 12.210.17.
149 Franklin Edgerton, The Beginnings of Indian Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965), 268. 62
(kāla), which [is computed by] the course of the stars, is the supreme Nārāyaṇa.”150 This is, of course, nearly identical with the idea that is expressed in the Bhāgavata, that
Nārāyaṇa is the same as Time.
The Purāṇas, as a group, are in no way united on the subject of Time. Some do not discuss the issue and some explain time in terms that are not at all compatible with an understanding of Time as a transcendent force, relegating it to a place as part of the ultimately unreal phenomenal world. While most of the Purāṇas contain some discussion of the nature of what might be termed gross time (as the Bhāgavata Purāṇa does151), a number of the Purāṇas contain references to Kāla as a power that is either identical with
God or which is wielded by God in order to enact the creation or destruction of the world.
By far the most common examples of Kāla as some sort of divine force in the Purāṇas are related to Kāla’s destructive nature, particularly its function in the annihilation at the end of the world cycle; something which is reminiscent to the reference to Kāla in the
Bhagavadgītā. There are numerous examples of this, for example Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇa152, and the Liṇga Purāṇa where Kāla is simply the form that God takes in his tamas aspect.153 Examples of Kāla as both a creative and destructive force, superintendent to the entire universe, can be found throughout the Kūrma Purāṇa. For example, “the elements
(or all living beings) and even Vāsudeva and Śaṅkara are created by Kala (time). He
150 12.335.80, quoted in Kloetzli, 556.
151 Bhāgavata Purāṇa, 3.11.
152 Ganesh Vasudeo Tagare, trans., The Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇa (Delhi, Varanasi, Patna. Motilal Banarsidass 1983), 1.1.4.
153 Liṅga Purāṇa Vol. 1, Ancient Indian Tradition and Mythology, trans. A Board of Scholars (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1973), 1.37. 63 alone devours them again. This Lord Kala is beginningless, endless, free from old age or decay and immortal. He is the Supreme Ruler because of his omnipresence, independence and his state of being the soul of all.”154 In the ninth chapter it is explained that Śiva becomes Time in order to create, maintain and destroy the universe.155 Significantly, the
Kūrma also identifies Kāla as the force which is the controller of māyā.156
The most significant example of Purāṇic notions of time for any discussion of the
Bhāgavata is found in the Viṣṇu Purāṇa. This is important for a number of reasons, but principally because of the highly probably connection between the two texts. Much of what can be found in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa can be explained as an elaboration of things that are found in a much more cursory form in the Viṣṇu Purāṇa, and the concept of Kāla is no exception to this. The Viṣṇu Purāṇa states that “These four – Pradhāna (primary or crude matter), Puruṣa (spirit), Vyakta (visible substance), and Kāla (time) – the wise consider to be the pure and supreme condition of Viṣṇu."157 Two things are clear from this; the first is that Kāla is evidently understood to be a manifestation of Viṣṇu by the author and the second is that it is not simply part of the vyakta, or manifest world, but is one of the primary components of creation along with puruṣa and prakṛti. The same discussion also includes one of the clearest illustrations of Vaiṣṇava speculations on Kāla and its place in the theistic cosmology.
The two forms which are other than the essence of unmodified Viṣṇu, are
154 Ganesh Vasudeo Tagare, trans., Kūrma Purāṇa (Delhi, Varanasi, Patna: Motilal Banarsidass 1981), 1.5.22-23.
155 Ibid., 1.9.60-61.
156 Ibid., 1.12-23-24
157 Wilson, 7. 64
Pradhāna (matter) and Puruṣa (spirit); and his other form, by which those two are connected or separated, is called Kāla (time). When discrete substance is aggregated in crude nature, as in a foregone dissolution, that dissolution is termed elemental (Prakṛta). The deity as Time is without beginning, and his end is not known; and from him the revolutions of creation, continuance, and dissolution unintermittingly succeeds: (or when, in the latter season, the equilibrium of the qualities (Pradhāna) exists, and spirit (Pumān) is detached from matter, then the form of Viṣṇu which is Time abide? Then the supreme Brahmā, the supreme soul, the substance of the world, the lord of all creatures, the universal soul, the supreme ruler, Hari, of his own will having entered into matter and spirit, agitated the mutable and immutable principles, the season of creation being arrived, in the same manner as fragrance affects the mind from its proximity merely, and not from any immediate operation upon mind itself: so the Supreme influenced the elements of creation. Puruṣottama is both the agitator and the thing to be agitated; being present in the essence of matter, both when it is contracted and expanded. Viṣṇu, supreme over the supreme, is the nature of discrete forms in the atomic productions, Brahmā and the rest (gods, men. etc.).158
What is important about this passage is how completely this notion of time is integrated into the Sāṃkhya cosmology of the Viṣṇu Purāṇa. While some of the earlier systems of theistic Sāṃkhya posited a deity, Īśvara, who was the superintendent of both prakṛti and puruṣa, the Viṣṇu identifies all three of these manifestations of the highest God Viṣṇu. It also classifies the superintendent of prakṛti and puruṣa not as Īśvara, but as Kāla, the power of Viṣṇu which allows prakṛti and puruṣa to periodically come together, exist, and then be separated again.
The concept of Kāla also plays a significant role in the Pañcarātra cosmology, one that far exceeds what one would expect from a tradition that seems to have so much
Sāṃkhya influence. For the most part the Pañcarātras agree with the doctrine of Time found in the Viṣṇu Purāṇa; Time is, along with prakṛti and puruṣa, the third fundamental element in the creation of the universe. Since the Viṣṇu Purāṇa is certainly older than any of the surviving Pañcarātra Saṃhitās it is impossible to know if the Viṣṇu is borrowing from some earlier Bhāgavata tradition about Kāla or if the Pañcarātra scriptures are
158 Ibid., 7-8. 65 actually using the Viṣṇu Purāṇa as a source. What is clear is that there is a long tradition of speculation about Time and its relationship to divinity in Bhāgavata circles going back at least to the Bhagavadgītā. However, the scriptures of the Pañcarātra provide a much more detailed and systematic description of these speculations that can help to provide perspective on what the meaning of the Bhāgavata’s doctrine of time might be.
Although the most authoritative Pañcarātra texts, the “three gems”, are mostly concerned with ritual and do not contain much in the way of philosophical speculation, there are indications that even these texts presuppose an understanding of Kāla that is significantly different from Classical Sāṃkhya. For instance, the Jayākhya Saṃhitā’s description of visualization techniques includes a procedure in which the tattvas of the traditional Sāṃkhya system are visualized on the body of the practitioner. Interestingly, the Jayākhya adds two tattvas to the pattern of 25, Īśvara and Kāla.159
The Ahirbudhnya Samira gives quite a lot of information about the relationship of
Kāla to the overall Pañcarātra philosophy. In general the Ahirbudhnya associates Kāla with God only through an intermediary; his śakti. Śakti separates herself into two forms, kriyāśakti and bhūtiśakti. Kriyāśakti is transcendent and responsible for pure creation, while the bhūtiśakti manifests herself as three constituent parts of the impure creation, avyakta, kāla, and puruṣa. These are activated at the beginning of creation by the kriyāśakti.160 Before the impure creation begins the bhūtiśakti’s three forms exist as a potentiality in the vyūha Pradyumna. When Aniruddha emanates from Pradyumna, Kāla
159 Gavin Flood, The Tantric Body (London: I.B. Tauris, 2006), 117.
160 Mitsunori Matsubara, Pañcarātra Saṃhitās and Early Vaiṣṇava Theology (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1994), 186. 66 splits into niyati and kāla, eternal and gross time. This is known as kālaśakti.161 These are the three components of the Sāṃkhya creation that are manifested from the potential in
Pradyumna to manifest in Aniruddha and then create the world. Niyati is the regulating power162 while
[The second aspect] of Kāla, its ripening form, is what drives [everything on] (kalanātmaka). This Driver or Time (kāla) then arises from Niyati, urged on by the will. The manus also descend from Niyati into Time. Time is the one force that drives [everything] on (kalayati), being impelled by Viṣṇu’s will. It drives on everything [making it] subject to time, just as a stream does the bank of a river.163
It has been demonstrated that the Parama Saṃhitā has a complex textual history and that it has undergone significant editing, particularly in its sections concerning creation.164 However, it does contain some interesting speculation regarding Kāla that seems to have much in common with the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. Oddly, Kāla is introduced not as a transcendent aspect of God, but as a tattva produced from taijasa-ahaṃkāra.165 It is stated that “Time creates the elements (bhūtani); Time destroys things born. Time is ever wakeful. Time cannot be transgressed. Time distinguishes all human ends, worldly as well as other worldly. The Past, the Present and the Future, all these take their course in Time.”166 What is interesting is that although Kāla appears here to be simply another
161 Ibid., 218.
162 Ibid., 221.
163 Ibid., 222.
164 Marzenna Czerniak-Drozdzowicz,”Sṛṣtikrama – Order of Creation in the Paramasaṃhitā,” Studies in Hinduism II: Miscellanea to the Phenomenon of Tantras ed. Gerhard Oberhammer (Wien: Verlag Der Osterreichischen Akademie Der Wissenschaften, 1998).
165 S. Krishnaswami Aiyangar, ed. and trans., Paramasaṁhitā [of the Pāñcharātra] (Baroda: Oriental Institute, 1940), 2.41.
166 Ibid., 2.67-68. 67 modification of prakṛti, it is also somehow also God manifesting himself in the phenomenal world. As in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa God exists in the world as Time.167
“The Supreme Being (Puruṣa), O, Brahman! Having become Kāla, sits and turns the wheel of time perpetually. In this manner keeping the universe going round through the illusion of his Guṇas, the eternal God remains busily doing, as if in play.”168
Clearly the history of speculations about the nature of Time is quite complex. The
Bhāgavata Purāṇa, though it presents a system that is all its own, does not appear to be ignorant of these theories. Roughly speaking, the Bhāgavata has rejected the doctrine of
Time which was taught by Classical Sāṃkhya-Yoga in favor of the alternative theory that there is an eternal temporal substratum that gives rise to the phenomenal experience of time as well as the creation and destruction of the world. It also identifies this force (Kāla) with its highest god, Nārāyaṇa. Though the Bhāgavata has much in common with all the systems which accept this general notion, it is clear that whoever composed the text was greatly influenced by the Bhāgavata tradition as a whole, and the Vaiṣṇava Purāṇas in particular. The Viṣṇu Purāṇa, for instance, appears to have been very much a source of inspiration for the Bhāgavata’s authors. However, the relationship between the
Bhāgavata Purāṇa and the surviving scriptures of the Pañcarātra School should not be discounted as there is considerable overlap between the two. The two most significant points in common between the Bhāgavata and the Pañcarātra scriptures are the place of
Kāla within the Sāṃkhya system, and the relationship between Kāla and the individual jīvas. The Bhāgavata, along with the Viṣṇu Purāṇa, holds that there are three
167 Marzenna Czerniak-Drozdzowicz, Pāñcarātra Scripture in the Process of Change: A Study of the Paramasaṃhitā (Vienna: De Nobili Research Library, 2003), 105.
168 Aiyangar, 2.77-78. 68 fundamental tattvas which are involved in the creation of the world; puruṣa, avyakta (the unmanifest prakṛti), and kāla. These are all understood to be both controlled by God and in some way the same as God, a somewhat confusing doctrine that is resolved with the addition of śakti into the scheme by the Pañcarātra scriptures. This idea is echoed in the
Pañcarātra texts, particularly the Ahirbudhnya Saṃhitā, where the bhūtiśakti is said to have three manifestations, avyakta, puruṣa, and kāla. The puruṣa that is meant here is the kūṭastha puruṣa, which is none other than the aggregate of all the individual souls, thus, for the Ahirbudhnya it is quite explicit that Kāla and the jīva are the external and internal manifestations of exactly the same śakti.169 In addition to this, the Pañcarātra scriptures maintain, and expand upon the distinction that seems to be implied in the Bhāgavata between gross and subtle Time.170
The Vyūhas
A clue to one of the major sources of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa’s doctrines can be found in its scattered references to the four vyūhas. This doctrine is specifically associated with the various Bhāgavata movements which gave rise to the more systematic
Pañcarātra teachings found in the Saṃhitās and other Pañcarātra scriptures. This word is usually translated as emanation, but can also be translated as something like “formation”, as in the formation that an army takes during battle, which is probably closer to the sense that is intended.171 In general this system is concerned with the four-fold manifestation
169 Kumar, 24-25.
170 Schrader, 65.
171 D. Dennis Hudson,”The Vyūhas in Stone,” Studies in Hinduism IV: On the Mutual Influences and Relationship of Viśiṣṭadvaita Vedānta and Pāñcarātra ed. Gerhard Oberhammer and Marion Rastelli (Wien: Verlag der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2007), 130. 69 of the personal absolute, usually identified as Nārāyaṇa, Bhagavān, or Vāsudeva. This ultimate reality is understood to have six qualities; jñāna (knowledge), aiśvarya
(lordship), śakti (potency), vīrya (virility), and tejas (splendor); and the vyūhas represent the different configurations these powers take. They are the different formations of the six guṇas. The first vyūha, Vāsudeva encompasses all six of these qualities and the remaining three; Saṃkarṣaṇa, Pradyumna, and Aniruddha have two each (these two are the dominant powers, the remaining four are understood to be present but dormant).
The exact origins of this belief are not entirely clear, especially since all surviving
Pañcarātra literature is from much later than the period in which this idea seems to have arisen. The earliest evidence for the worship of the vyūhas appears to be sculptural with cultic images that appear to show the four vyūhas dating back to as far as the 2nd century
B.C.E.172 Early written evidence of the worship of the four vyūhas is mostly tenuous. The earliest written sources that explicitly mention a four-fold manifestation of the supreme god are also in disagreement about the nature of these manifestations. The Nārāyaṇīya refers to these manifestations not as vyūhas, but as mūrtis, and mentions two completely different lists of names for these four entities; the more common version of Vāsudeva,
Saṃkarṣaṇa, Pradyumna, and Aniruddha, as well as a unique version in which Nara,
Nārāyaṇa, Hari, and Kṛṣṇa are all manifestations of Nārāyaṇa, the supreme god.173 The
Jayakhyā Saṃhitā, perhaps the earliest surviving Pañcarātra scripture, provides an
172 Dennis Hudson, “Early Evidence of the Pañcarātra Āgama,” in The Roots of Tantra, ed. Katherine Anne Harper and Robert L. Brown (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002), 142-144.
173 Brockington, 291-292. 70 alternative list of vyūhas; Vāsudeva, Acutya, Satya, and Puruṣa.174 It is clear then that this doctrine underwent quite a long development with a number of different versions before its eventual crystallization into the more common theory that is found in all other
Pañcarātra scriptures. As even the most conservative dates for the final redaction of the
Bhāgavata Purāṇa are well before most of these texts it would not be surprising if it preserved some vestigial elements of the vyūha doctrine.
There are a number of references to the vyūhas in the Bhāgavata.175 It should also be noted that the entirety of the tenth book, the central book of the entire text, is concerned not only with the exploits of Vāsudeva-Kṛṣṇa, but also with his family members who are identified with the other three vyūhas. It is possible that this entire book could, in fact, be read symbolically with the stories of Kṛṣṇa and his family members representing the esoteric functions of the vyūhas and their interactions with one another, but this is perhaps too big of a stretch, and without a systematic analysis of this it is impossible to say for sure. As noted above, the vyūha theory of the Pañcarātra School, or at the very least the skeleton of it, is given a prominent place in the third book’s description of the evolution of the tattvas. Despite the very clear links with this theological system, there are a number of ways in which the Bhāgavata’s account appears to be in conflict with the more fully developed examples of the Pañcarātra Saṃhitās themselves. If at all possible these incongruities need to be explained if a fuller understanding of the theology behind the Bhāgavata is to be discovered.
174 Klaus K. Klostermaier, Mythologies and Philosophies of Salvation in the Theistic Traditions of India (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Lauier University Press, 1984), 98.
175 4.24, 11.4.29, 10.40.21. 71
The fully developed system of even the earliest Pañcarātra texts distinguishes between two separate creations. The impure creation in which the mundane world and the gross elements are created in a manner that is roughly equivalent to the Purāṇic version of Sāṃkhya, and the earlier, pure creation which involves the emergence of the four vyūhas and the activities of the śaktis of Vāsudeva. The Bhāgavata Purāṇa, despite its use of the vyūha terminology, seems to completely do away with this distinction. The vyūhas are not produced separately from the phenomenal world, but at the same time as it.
In fact, they are even equated with three of the first four tattvas that are produced;
Vāsudeva being mahat, Saṃkarṣaṇa as ahaṃkāra, and Aniruddha as manas. This could, rather plausibly, be written off as a simple misunderstanding of Pañcarātra theology by someone who was only vaguely familiar with its details and probably was not actually initiated into the ritual system, but there are a few hints that the rather strange outline given in the Bhāgavata reflects something that a number of people actually believed.
One major problem with this portion of the text is that even though this seems to be a clear reference to the vyūhas, one of the four vyūhas appears to be missing,
Pradyumna. Pradyumna usually appears between Saṃkarṣaṇa and Aniruddha and his absence in this system is conspicuous. However, one clue to this is that though he is not explicitly named, there is an addition to the Sāṃkhya system here that implies that the author must have meant to imply his presence. Contrary to other enumerations of the
Sāṃkhya system, even versions that appear in the Bhāgavata itself, the 26th chapter of the third skanda adds a tattva to the antaḥkaraṇa (internal organ). Usually the antaḥkaraṇa is comprised of three parts, mahat (usually identified with buddhi), ahaṃkāra, and manas.
In this enumeration there are four tattvas; mahat, which is here identified as citta, 72 ahaṃkāra, manas, and buddhi. Vāsudeva is mahat/citta, Saṃkarṣaṇa is ahaṃkāra, and
Aniruddha is manas. This leaves buddhi without any corresponding deity, a fact that strongly implies Pradyumna is meant to be applied to buddhi. This appears to be confirmed by the earliest available commentary on the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, the
Bhāvārthabodhinī of Śrīdhara Svāmin which also records this opinion in its commentary on 10.21 in which all four of the vyūhas are associated with one of the tattvas, Vāsudeva with citta, Saṃkarṣaṇa with ahaṃkāra, Aniruddha with manas, and Pradyumna with buddhi.176
Interestingly, a few verses later, Śrīdhara, apparently reports an entirely different theory about the presence of Pradyumna in this system. He explains that the Pradyumna vyūha is desire, which is nothing more than a function of manas.177 While this reading may seem totally nonsensical, there is a basis for it in Bhāgavata literature, quite a significant one in fact. It would seem that Pradyumna has long been associated with desire, and even with Kāmadeva himself, the personification of desire. The Bhāgavata itself makes the connection in the tenth book stating that Pradyumna is an incarnation of
Kāmadeva.178 This is, of course, in reference to Pradyumna the son of Kṛṣṇa and not necessarily to the vyūha Pradyumna, but it should be noted that the association between the earthly Kṛṣṇa and his relatives and the vyūhas of Pañcarātra theology is not entirely clear. This connection between Pradyumna and Kāmadeva seems to go back quite far.
176 Bhāgavata Purāṇa of Kṛṣṇa Dvaipāyana Vyāsa With Sanskrit Commentary Bhāvarthabodhinī of Srīdharasvāmin, ed. J.L. Shastri (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1983), 143.
177 Ibid., 144.
178 Bhāgavata Purāṇa, 10.55.1-3. 73
For example, Dennis Hudson has documented it in south Indian Vaiṣṇava temples.179 In addition to this, the ninth century Tamil poet Aṇṭāl, one of the Āḻvārs, devotes a great deal of her Nacciyar Tirumoli to calling upon Kāmadeva. What is remarkable about this is that Aṇṭāl, and all of the Āḻvārs in general, are usually very strictly sectarian and rarely invoke any deity besides Nārāyaṇa or Kṛṣṇa, or one of their numerous manifestations.
This may imply that Aṇṭāl understood Kāmadeva to be a Vaiṣṇava deity, perhaps even
Pradyumna himself, a fact that has been noted by scholars.180 Interestingly, this quite possibly places the association in the south, the exact geographical area where the
Bhāgavata is thought to have been completed. This fact certainly does not disprove the notion that this may very well be a reference to Pradyumna, and in a way that is explicitly related to Pañcarātra. Of course, all of this is speculation. While it is clear that
Pradyumna was identified with Kāmadeva and it is clear the third book refers to the other three vyūhas, it does not explicitly mention Pradyumna. It is significant that there appears to be so much other evidence that would point to such a notion though; particularly in terms of the commentarial tradition. While the authors of the Bhāgavata may not themselves had this in mind (though it is quite likely that they did) the text they produced was certainly interpreted this way not long after its appearance.
Although this specific doctrine of the vyūhas does not appear in any of the surviving Pañcarātra Saṃhitās, this does not necessarily mean that it was not more prevalent at some point in the past, perhaps even a primary component of Bhāgavata cosmological thought. As has already been pointed out, all surviving Pañcarātra
179 Hudson, “The Vyūhas in Stone,” 156-157.
180 D. Dennis Hudson, The Body of God: An Emperor’s Palace for Krishna in Eighth-Century Kanchipuram (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 436-437. 74 scriptures are relatively late and because of this it is difficult to know how representative even the earliest of these texts is of the formative period. In this case there are a number of hints that this doctrine may have been much more popular at one point as well as a number of significant factors that would have contributed to its falling out of favor in more recent times. The Nārāyaṇīya is probably the earliest surviving document from the
Bhāgavata tradition and it refers to its teachings as Pañcarātra (though how closely it relates to Pañcarātra’s ritual system, even in its own time is certainly debatable).
Interestingly, it seems to mention a teaching that is very similar to the association of the four vyūhas with the antaḥkaraṇa in the Bhāgavata. It lists Vāsudeva as the puruṣa,
Saṃkarṣaṇa as the jīva, Pradyumna as manas, and Aniruddha as ahaṃkāra.181 However, this doctrine is not presented as a central teaching of the Bhāgavatas in the Nārāyaṇīya and is mentioned almost in passing; thus it is difficult to know how it should be interpreted. The Nārāyaṇīya as it exists today is far from a monolithic text. It seems to have accumulated material over a long period of time and likely incorporated material from a variety of sources even in its earliest versions.
Śaṅkara assigns a very similar opinion to the Bhāgavatas (who he also identifies with Pañcarātrins) in his Brahmāsūtrabhāṣya when trying to refute them. He claims that the Bhāgavatas think that Vāsudeva “has divided himself in four ways, and has set himself up in four forms (vyūhas) of Vāsudeva, Saṃkarṣaṇa, Pradyumna and Aniruddha.
‘Vāsudeva, verily, is said to be the Highest Self, ‘Samkarshana’, the Jīva-Self,
181 Gerard Colas, “History of Vaiṣṇava Traditions: An Esquisse,” in The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism ed. Gavin Flood (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), 235. 75
‘Pradyumna’, the mind and ‘Aniruddha’ the ego (ahaṃkāra).”182 Śaṅkara clearly disapproves of this opinion and uses it as the basis for his entire attack on the Bhāgavatas.
Most of the other early commentators follow Śaṅkara in his use of this particular doctrine to explain sūtras 2.2.42-45, most notably Bhāskara. Bhāskara, a Vedāntin of the
Bhedhābheda School, was slightly later than Śaṅkara and seems to have had at least some knowledge of either Śaṅkara’s writings or the school from which he came. Bhāskara follows Śaṅkara very closely, a fact that is somewhat surprising.183 In general Bhāskara is quite critical of Śaṅkara so the fact that he is very much in agreement with Śaṅkara in terms of his argumentation is striking. Rāmānuja also comments on the same verses and understands them to be an argument against a particular form of Pañcarātra. This is even more surprising as Rāmānuja is generally considered to have been a proponent of the
Pañcarātra. He does, however, interpret the final sūtra of the section to be an explanation that not all Pañcarātra is denied, only that which is contrary to the Veda.184 What this all implies is that this was a traditional argument that was used against the Pañcarātrins by followers of Vedānta, probably going back to a very early date, and thus it may preserve a tradition of Bhāgavata cosmology that has not survived intact.185
As was noted above, this understanding of the vyūhas is quite different from that of the surviving Pañcarātra Saṃhitās. The tattvas of the Sāṃkhya cosmology, even the higher ones such as buddhi and ahaṃkāra are understood to be part of the world-system
182 Apte, 418.
183 Neeval, 18.
184 J.A.B. van Buitenen, ed. and trans., Yāmuna’s Āgama Prāmāṇyam or Treatise on the Validity of Pañcarātra (Madras: Ramanuja Research Society, 1971), 28-38.
185 Neeval, 18. 76 that consists of modifications of prakṛti. The Pañcarātra scriptures place emanation of the vyūhas in the pure creation, before the creation of the phenomenal world and, thus, any attempt to identify even the lower three vyūhas with any of the tattvas would be nearly as problematic for Pañcarātra as it was for Vedānta. With this in mind it is hardly surprising that this doctrine is almost entirely absent from entirety of the surviving Pañcarātra corpus, with one notable exception.
Although it is a fairly late text that generally agrees with the creation accounts of the other Saṃhitās, the Lakṣmī Tantra does identify three of the vyūhas with tattvas that correspond to the system referenced in the Nārāyaṇīya and the commentaries on the
Brahma Sūtras. In the sixth book, Aniruddha states that he exists “as the egohood of
Saṃkarṣaṇa,” and that “These three ancient divinities headed by Saṃkarṣaṇa are known as jīva, buddhi and ahaṃkāra (egohood).”186 It is important to note that the context in which this statement appears is not so much a description of the nature of the universe as it is a description of the nature of individual souls, or jīvas. The Lakṣmī Tantra, like most
Pañcarātra texts, understands the individual selves to be manifestations of Nārāyaṇa who are, at the same time, somehow different from him. How there can appear to be a multitude of individual selves that are all somehow real then poses a problem for most
Pañcarātrins as God is understood to be unchanging. The Lakṣmī Tantra solves this problem by identifying the individual selves as modifications of Śakti. It would seem then that this does not serve a cosmological function so much as it does a microcosmic function as the emanation of the constituent parts of the individual selves.
Interestingly this is actually closer to the position Śaṅkara and the other Vedāntins seem to be arguing against since their objection seems to be related to the production of
186 Gupta, Lakṣmī Tantra, 6.12-13. 77 the individual jīvas. If the selves are produced as emanations from the Supreme Self
(Vāsudeva) then they cannot be co-eternal with Brahman as the Brahma Sūtras maintain.
Of course, the Lakṣmī Tantra gets around this by placing this entire process in the pure creation. As if to counter the potential arguments of the Vedāntins (whose arguments would have been widely known by the time the final version of Lakṣmī Tantra was produced) the text actually qualifies its discussion of all of this with the following;
“These are indeed not phenomenal (aprākṛta, i.e. do not consist of the three guṇas), but consist of pure consciousness.”187 Thus, even though the Lakṣmī Tantra assigns two of the tattvas to corresponding vyūhas, it does not seem to have the buddhi and ahaṃkāra of the gross creation in mind. Schrader maintains that the idea expressed in this verse is that
Saṃkarṣaṇa, Pradyumna, and Aniruddha are “as it were” the jīva, buddhi, and manas.188
He also theorizes that the original meaning of this doctrine must have been that the vyūhas were the tutelary deities of these particular tattvas, a doctrine that seems to be partially preserved in the Viṣvaksena Saṃhitā where Saṃkarṣaṇa is the “superintendent of all the souls” and Pradyumna is the “superintendent of the mind (manas).”189 In general this interpretation seems to conform to what is being said in the Bhāgavata
Purāṇa where these tattvas do serve a cosmological function in addition to their function as the antaḥkaraṇa of the individual. Throughout the 26th chapter the tattvas are associated with a variety of different deities and in general this addition to the Sāṃkhya cosmology is quite common throughout the Purāṇic literature and, thus, it is not
187 Ibid., 6.12-13.
188 Schrader, 39.
189 Ibid., 40. 78 unreasonable to assume that this doctrine was once far more widespread than the surviving literature would imply. Thus, it would appear that the Bhāgavata Purāṇa is one of the few texts to preserve a trace of this earlier Pañcarātra doctrine of the vyūhas.
Although it does not fully agree with that of the Nārāyaṇīya or the Lakṣmī Tantra, the systems are fundamentally similar in their disagreement with the more commonly found understanding of the vyūhas. In fact, the major difference between the two systems appears to be not so much in their understanding of the vyūhas, but in their enumeration of the tattvas which are to be associated with the vyūhas.
The Antaḥkaraṇa
In terms of the psychological makeup of the individual, the Bhāgavata Purāṇa presents a somewhat unique theory. In general, all those systems which follow the enumeration of reality as given by the Sāṃkhya School agree on the basic points, particularly in terms of the number of tattvas and the basic list. The earlier the text is the less likely it is to agree with this formulation though, and a great deal of diversity can be seen when Classical Sāṃkhya is compared with that of some parts of the Mahābhārata and other texts such as the Buddhacarita. However, even though there are some minor points of disagreement, for the most part the general sketch of the system is followed in texts that post-date the Sāṃkhyakārikas. This is true even in texts that are not generally considered to belong to the Sāṃkhya School proper, but which borrow its general cosmological enumeration such as the Purāṇas or Pañcarātra Saṃhitās. Obviously these texts do not agree with Classical Sāṃkhya on many fundamental issues, including those which have already been discussed, but in terms of the understanding of prakṛti, what the number of tattvas is, and how they function together, there is very little in the way of 79 deviation from the basic Sāṃkhya pattern. There are 24, and the antaḥkaraṇa consisting of three tattvas, manas, ahaṃkāra, and mahat (buddhi).
The presentation of the tattvas in the Kapila portion of the Bhāgavata poses something of a problem then as it lays out a system that appears to be unique. This is true not only in the case of any transcendent reality, but in terms of the tattvas that constitute the material world, particularly those which are said to comprise the antaḥkaraṇa. Instead of the normative threefold antaḥkaraṇa, the Bhāgavata explicitly defines the antaḥkaraṇa as fourfold.190 This formulation is continued throughout the Kapilagītā and, as discussed above, is explicitly identified with the vyūhas of Pañcarātra theology as part of its cosmological function.
Somewhat strangely, this disagrees not only with other Sāṃkhya, Bhāgavata, and
Purāṇic texts, but with the Bhāgavata Purāṇa itself. Nowhere else in the Bhāgavata is this description of a fourfold antaḥkaraṇa given. The other places in the Bhāgavata where systematic explanations of Sāṃkhya are given maintain a more traditional antaḥkaraṇa of three tattvas, and it is not even mentioned as a possibility in the eleventh book’s discussion of the numerous alternative versions of the Sāṃkhya philosophy. This obviously creates a significant problem as it is not immediately clear where this is actually coming from; is it original to the Bhāgavata or is it derived from somewhere else?
A very probable source for this seeming anomaly is actually the Yoga system of
Patañjali. Although this system agrees with Classical Sāṃkhya on nearly every point in terms of basic cosmology, this is one of the few places where it the two diverge.
Coincidentally the Yoga Sūtras offer a description of something that is similar to the
Bhāgavata Purāṇa. The Yoga Sūtras add a significant element to the Sāṃkhya schema,
190 Bhāgavata Purāṇa, 3.26.11. 80 citta. Citta appears nowhere in the Sāṃkhya of the Kārikas, but is a central component of the Pātañjala system. What the Yoga Sūtras themselves mean is not always entirely clear.
Concepts are often mentioned without providing clear definitions so modern interpreters must rely on the aid of the commentarial tradition to get at least some idea, flawed though it may be, of what the Sūtras are attempting to convey. In the case of citta the general consensus is that it is not exactly a tattva, but is comprised of the three tattvas that usually make up the antaḥkaraṇa in Sāṃkhya; buddhi, ahaṃkāra, and manas. In effect it replaces the antaḥkaraṇa and subsumes these three mental processes within itself, acting somewhat like a container for buddhi, ahaṃkāra, and manas. It is the most fundamental component of prakṛti as well, the “mind-stuff” out of which everything else proceeds; often it is spoken of in a way that would seem to imply it is the same thing as prakṛti or puruṣa.
Clearly this is not identical with the doctrine found in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa; in which the addition of citta does not replace the antaḥkaraṇa, instead it is explicitly added to it. It is possible that this may refer to the same general idea, but in an ambiguous way.
As discussed, these four tattvas appear to be related to the vyūhas in the Bhāgavata, this may be a clue to interpreting their relationship to one another. In terms of the vyūha theory, the lower three vyūhas, Saṃkarṣaṇa, Pradyumna, and Aniruddha are understood to come forth from and also exist within the first vyūha, Vāsudeva. It is probably not too great of a leap to imagine that the author of this section of the Bhāgavata understood this relationship between the vyūhas to mirror that of these four tattvas; as Saṃkarṣaṇa,
Pradyumna, and Aniruddha exist within Vāsudeva, so do ahaṃkāra, manas, and buddhi exist within citta. This is, of course only speculation though as there are enough 81 differences between these two systems to lead one to doubt they have anything to do with each other.
Oddly enough, one of the few places in which this anomalous version of the antaḥkaraṇa appears is actually in the writings of Śaṅkara. Śaṅkara does not present a unified theory of the antaḥkaraṇa over all of his writings, a situation that is complicated by the attribution of many works to Śaṅkara of many works that he likely did not write and the impossibility of coming to a definitive authorship in many cases. Generally
Śaṅkara holds that the antaḥkaraṇa is fourfold. There is not always uniformity in his descriptions of what four things comprise the antaḥkaraṇa, but it appears that he does occasionally give a list that is identical with the Kapilagītā.191 Just as often he modifies this in some way however, such as in his Brahmāsūtrabhāṣya on 2.3.32 where ahaṃkāra is replaced by vijñāna.192
Another unexpected place where this fourfold antaḥkaraṇa can be found is in some of the later, so called Saṃnyāsa or Yoga Upaniṣads. These texts often present these four; citta, buddhi, manas, and ahaṃkāra as a unit, but give little context for what they are. Examples of this include the Adhyātma Upaniṣad,193 Subāla Upaniṣad,194 Garbha
Upaniṣad,195 Tejobindu Upaniṣad,196 and Varāha Upaniṣad.197 Other Upaniṣads
191 Śaṅkara, Upadeśasāhasrī, vol. 2: Introduction and English translation, ed. Sengaku Mayeda (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 2006) 30-31.
Richa Pauranik Clements, “Being a Witness,” in Theory and Practice of Yoga ed. Knut A Jacobsen (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2005), 82.
192 Śaṅkara, Brahmāsūtrabhāṣya (Dilli: Prakashaka, 2001), 164.
193 K. Narayanasvami Aiyar, trans., Thirty Minor Upaniṣads (Delhi: Parimal Publications, 1997), 43.
194 Ibid., 52, 54.
195 Ibid., 88. 82 explicitly mention these four within the context of the Sāṃkhya cosmology such as the
Nāradaparivrājaka Upaniṣad,198 while others such as the Śārīraka Upaniṣad specifically name these four as the antaḥkaraṇa; “Antaḥkaraṇa (or the internal organ) is of four kinds
– manas, buddhi, ahaṃkāra, and citta.”199 Somewhat strangely the Paiṅgala Upaniṣad actually provides five, not four elements; antaḥkaraṇa, manas, buddhi, citta, and ahaṃkāra.200 It is extremely difficult to know how to relate these texts to the Bhāgavata
Purāṇa though. The later Upaniṣads have undergone a lengthy period of redaction and rewriting and thus cannot be reliably dated at all. Some probably date back as early as the
4th century while others are clearly much later; as late as the 14th or 15th century. One of these that has actually been given a provisional date, the Naradaparivrājaka, is not thought to be older than the 12th century.201 Given the date of these texts there may even be influence from the Śaṇkara School of Vedānta. Due to this it seems unlikely that these
Upaniṣads were somehow a direct influence on the third book of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa and the same is probably true for Śaṇkara. However, what these examples do show is that despite what is seen in the textual record of Classical Sāṃkhya, speculation about the nature of the Sāṃkhya cosmology was very much in a state of flux, particularly at this late date. The Sāṃkhyakārikas represent just one version of this cosmology and a number of other groups saw no problem with modifying the system, especially those groups that
196 Ibid.,76.
197 Ibid, 167.
198 Ibid., 118.
199 Ibid. 86.
200 Ibid. 36.
201 Patrick Olivelle, trans., Saṃnyāsa Upaniṣads: Hindu Scriptures on Asceticism and Renunciation (New York and Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1992), 8-11. 83 had no affiliation with Sāṃkhya philosophy proper, such as Vedānta or the Bhāgavatas.
There is also a very real possibility that all of these texts may be influenced by some earlier tradition, possibly a rival to the school which gave rise to the Kārikas, but given the lack evidence it is simply impossible to know whether this was the case.
84
CONCLUSION
In addition to the major doctrinal deviations from the formula of Classical
Sāṃkhya, the Kapilagītā features a great deal of smaller differences with the more well- known versions of Sāṃkhya that betray its Purāṇic origins. The most obvious of these is the role of the taijasa-ahaṃkāra in the evolution of the other tattvas. In the
Sāṃkhyakārikas taijasa-ahaṃkāra does not itself emanate any further tattvas; instead its role seems to be related more to its role as rajas in that it activates the sāttvika and tāmasa ahaṃkāras. These are understood to be static in their unmixed form, just as the sattva and tamas guṇas are; it is only the addition of the active guṇa, rajas, that allows for anything to take place.
The Bhāgavata greatly increases the role of taijasa-ahaṃkāra. Most importantly, buddhi, the additional tattva that is added to the system is understood to emanate from taijasa. In addition to this the ten indriyas are said to emanate from the taijasa as well, and not from the sāttvikāhaṃkāra. The buddhi also appears to take on the role that manas plays in the Classical system as the controller of these indriyas in which they are all processed. The exact relationship between the two remains slightly unclear as it is not completely apparent whether the indriyas emanate directly from the taijasa-ahaṃkāra, or from buddhi. Whichever of these the author originally intended, what is obvious is that this is a significant departure from the way in which taijasa-ahaṃkāra is understood in the Classical system.
The situation is similar for the tanmātras and the mahābhūtas. The
Sāṃkhyakārikas maintain that the tanmātras are derived from the tāmasa-ahaṃkāra and that the mahābhūtas are derived from their corresponding tanmātras; space from sound- 85 tanmātra, wind from touch-tanmātra etc. The Bhāgavata provides quite a different system. The first of the tanmātras, sound, is derived directly from the tamasa-ahaṃkāra and space is derived from sound-tanmātra, but after this the next tanmātra, touch, seems to be derived from space, sound, or the combination of the two, not from the tāmasa- ahaṃkāra. This continues for all of the remaining tattvas; touch produces wind which leads to sight, sight produces fire which leads to taste, taste produces water which leads to smell, and smell produces earth.
What is striking is how closely this compares with a creation account that was studied quite extensively by Paul Hacker. Hacker notes that the creation accounts of a great number of the Purāṇas are based on the same the same textual source. His hypothesis is that there was, at some point, a short cosmological tract that all of these
Purāṇas used as a source. He dates this hypothetical text to no later than 300 C.E., but notes that it could very well be much older, possibly even into the first century B.C.E. He also notes that this hypothetical source is almost certainly based in Mahābhārata 12.224.
The cosmology which is described in this portion of the Mahābhārata, as well as all of the texts that are based on it, is a form of Sāṃkhya, but it is a Sāṃkhya that has significant differences with the Classical Sāṃkhya of the Sāṃkhyakārikas.202 One way in which this cosmology differs from that of Classical Sāṃkhya is in the evolution of the mahābhūtas and the tanmātras. Interestingly, it is precisely the same as that of the
Kapilagītā; the sound-tanmātra evolves from the tāmasa-ahaṃkāra, and space evolves from the sound-tanmātra, each tanmātra-mahābhūta pair being evolved from the one
202 Paul Hacker, “The Sānkhyization of the Emanation Doctrine Shown in a Critical Analysis of Texts,” Archiv Fur Indische Philosophie, 110-111. 86 before it.203 While the Bhāgavata’s account of this is textually quite different from
Hacker’s proposed cosmological tract, and thus cannot be shown to have directly borrowed from it, it is clear that the Bhāgavata preserves, at the very least, portions of a cosmological account that is associated with a Purāṇic tradition that can be shown to connect back with the Sāṃkhya of the epic. This version of Sāṃkhya, perhaps a rival to the Sāṃkhya of the Kārikas, is then placed into the mouth of Kapila, the founder of the
Sāṃkhya School himself, by the authors of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, thereby claiming the original Sāṃkhya teaching for its own tradition.
The cosmological content of the Kapilagītā is obviously quite a significant part of what it is attempting convey, but apart from the relationship to Purāṇic cosmologies in general it is not totally clear what its purpose is in this particular exchange. In most
Purāṇas such speculation occurs exclusively in the portions of the text in which creation or destruction are discussed. This, however, is not the stated goal of the teaching which
Kapila is attempting to convey, liberation is. How such teachings might relate to a system that’s goal is liberation is quite a complicated issue, but may very reveal what the purpose of this text was in the first place.
While it is well known that the Purāṇas are quite interested in explaining the cosmology of the universe in the most minute detail, the writings of Classical Sāṃkhya and Yoga are also quite concerned to provide an accurate description of the universe.
This can mostly be found in the commentaries to the Sāṃkhyakārikas and the Yoga
Sūtras where descriptions of the various lokas and their inhabitants are presented as an important element of the teaching of the school. These descriptions are also remarkably similar to what might be called the typical Purāṇic cosmology. The commentaries on the
203 Ibid., 102-103. 87
Yoga Sūtras in particular seem to be extremely interested in correctly explaining the cosmology of the universe, though it is never entirely clear why this might be the case. It is possible that it is only the scholastic desire to be thorough, but there may also be more playing into this.
One should always keep in mind that any description of the universe is, to a certain extent, also a description of the human body, and the body of the practitioner in particular. The picture of the universe is always understood to be exactly replicated in miniature in the human body and the universe is generally thought to have the shape of the body of a human male. The macrocosm is the microcosm and vice versa. When this is kept in mind the preoccupation with describing the various components of the universe and their inner-workings in detail begins to make sense.
It is generally thought that in the Classical Sāṃkhya system that liberation was brought about simply by an intuitive understanding of the structure of the universe, but the question of whether or not some sort of practice, perhaps some sort of ritual contemplation of the tattvas, might have been necessary to arrive at this knowledge. It should also be remembered that even in Sāṃkhya, where the focus appears to be overwhelmingly on the prakṛti that binds the individual puruṣa there was an idea that the prakṛti which all share in common actually constituted the body of Brahmā.
It is relatively easy to see why Sāṃkhya might have been interested in such things, but Yoga would appear to be a different matter as Yoga provides a system of practice that is intended to bring about liberation, the eight āṅgas (limbs) of the Yoga system. This includes a series of five yamas (abstentions) and five niyamas (observances) that are understood to be a necessary preliminary of all practice. Significantly, the Kapilagītā also 88 presents a system of practice that includes a version of the eight limbs of Yogic practice, complete with the same list of yamas and niyamas.204
What is clear is that as a whole the Kapilagītā is attempting to provide some sort of systematic teaching that will allow the practitioner to attain liberation. It does not, however, simply stop with the eight limbs and assume that these will, on their own, allow one to reach the goal. After this system of Yogic practices is explained, a series of devotional practices are recommended. These include traditional forms of devotional practice.205 It is clear that these have very much in common with practices that are central to the practices of a number of devotional traditions, particularly Vaiṣṇava traditions. It would seem then that these yogic practices are not intended to bring about liberation themselves, but are purifying practices which prepare the practitioner for devotion, which is the only path to liberation the Bhāgavata recognizes.
Immediately following the explanation of the eight āṅgas there is a practice recommended that includes a detailed visualization of and meditation on the body of God.
It is important to remember that such practices are of the greatest importance to a number of Vaiṣṇava devotional schools, but are given particular importance in the Pañcarātra where they form some of the central practices.
Visualization practices in general also have a function in the Pañcarātra tradition that relates back to the Sāṃkhya cosmology. If the tattvas of the Sāṃkhya system are understood to be only of the false material nature that is responsible for the bondage of the practitioner (and in the Pañcarātra system they are), and the body is understood to
204 Bhāgavata Purāṇa, 3.28.1-12.
205 Ibid., 3.29. 89 replicate the universe as a body, then all of the deities and mantras associated with all of the tattvas can be understood to reside in the body as well. These can then be visualized within the body. To meditate on one is to mediate on the other. The process of creation and destruction of the universe has important an important ritual function in the
Pañcarātra system in which, through visualization, the process is recreated by the practitioner. The practitioner visualizes the body as the microcosm and then proceeds to visualize the destruction of the world at the end of the world-cycle starting with the mahābhūtas all the way up through the Sāṃkhya cosmology. When this is finished the microcosm is recreated through the reverse of this, which is identical to the process of evolution in the Sāṃkhya system of Pañcarātra.206 Generally this ritual is undertaken as purification before direct worship of the deity.
With this in mind, might it be possible that the cosmological portions of the third book of the Bhāgavata might have been included for some practical application? The description of the evolution of the tattvas followed by a detailed description of the universe as the body of Virat Puruṣa may be intended as meditative guides for the practitioner. Though this might seem like it is reading far too much into the text than is there, it seems to be a possibility that is worth of consideration. For one thing, this would help to explain the confusion regarding the vyūhas in chapter 26. In the Pañcarātra cosmology it does not make any sense to associate the vyūhas with the antaḥkaraṇa, but if the goal is not so much to inform the reader of facts so much as it is to provide a meditative guide it begins to look much more plausible. Even if the author would have acknowledged that the vyūhas are a part of the pure creation, and thus are not located
206 Sanjukta Gupta, “Yoga and Antaryāga in Pañcarātra,” in Ritual and Speculation in Early Tantrism, ed. Teun Goudriaan (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 192. 90 anywhere within the world-system, it is hardly possible to visualize them on the body if they are not allowed to be placed anywhere within the body. As the vyūhas are an important part of the system, it makes sense that the author would want to include them in the description if he was trying to be systematic, particularly if this was intended to be used as some sort of ritual guide. It may also be worth noting that the cosmological description appears first, followed by the eight-limbed Yogic practices, visualization of the deity, and then devotional practices culminating in liberation. This would mean that if a progression is intended here, the proposed visualization of the Sāṃkhya cosmology takes place first, before the other practices. This fits quite nicely with the status of such practices as purification. This would make the entirety of the Kapilagītā something like a self-contained handbook for the practice of a particular system of Vaiṣṇava yoga. This is speculative of course, but it does provide another possible avenue for further research into such texts.
One of the most perplexing aspects of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa is the degree to which it appears to have been influenced by, or at the very least is responding to, the
Vedānta school. It should in no way be thought of as a Vedāntic text (at least in terms of the Vedānta that would seem to have existed in the time before its composition) as there is far too much material that would seem to disagree with this position. For one thing the influence of Bhāgavata traditions is too considerable in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa to ignore, and although there very well might have been some early school of Vedānta that was focused primarily on devotion to some Vaiṣṇava deity, there is not a sufficient amount of data to confirm this. Even so, the text makes considerable references to ideas that are generally associated with Vedanta. While at times these are inserted into the text in a very 91 casual way, at other points the Bhāgavata Purāṇa almost seems to be responding to some of the criticisms of the Bhāgavata religion that appear to have been common at the time of its composition.
The entire text of the Bhāgavata actually seems to be trying to associate itself with the central text of Vedānta, the Brahmā Sūtras. The first part of the first verse of the
Bhāgavata Purāṇa is identical to the second sutra of the Brahmā Sūtras; “janmādyasya yataḥ.”207 This can hardly be a coincidence as this is not a formulaic beginning to texts, so it is almost certainly a direct quotation meant to associate the subject matter of the
Brahmā Sūtras with that of the Bhāgavata itself. This would seem to indicate that whoever has done this wanted to show that the object of inquiry of the Brahmā Sūtras,
Brahman, was identical to the object of devotion in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, the Bhagavān.
These verses are complex and have been the subject of a great deal of commentary and diverse interpretations. What is striking about this is that the vague Brahman of the
Brahmā Sūtras, a concept that was generally interpreted in an abstract or impersonal way, is identified as the same thing as the object of worship in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Viṣṇu-
Nārāyaṇa, the Bhagavān. In effect this creates the impression that the contents of the
Bhāgavata reveal the same knowledge as the Vedānta School itself, and perhaps even a more complete knowledge. Though this might seem a stretch given the vast difference of content between the two texts, it has often been interpreted this way; even to the point that the Bhāgavata is itself regarded as a commentary on the Brahmā Sūtras. Not only
207 Sheridan, The Advaitic Theism of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, 10. BS 1.1.2, BhP 1.1.1. 92 that, theoretically it would be the best commentary as the two texts are understood to have the same author.208
A complete analysis of the influence of Vedāntic philosophy and terminology on the Bhāgavata Purāṇa is far outside the scope of this paper, but most likely would reveal quite a lot of interesting information. However, the third book of the Bhāgavata, which this paper has mostly been concerned with, provides a great deal of material that appears to show the influence of at least some form of Vedānta, if not Śaṅkara himself. Much of this was covered above.
Despite all of this it does not seem likely that the Bhāgavata Purāṇa was written by followers of Śaṅkara, or any known school of Vedānta for that matter. As has been discussed, Vedānta itself appears to have been quite hostile towards Bhāgavatism, the tradition that the Bhāgavata Purāṇa champions. That being said, it seems clear that the authors of the Bhāgavata were very much aware of the Vedānta tradition, though maybe not of Śaṅkara as the date is still very much up in the air. The similarities the Bhāgavata has with Vedānta seem to be the results of the influence of Vedānta, but perhaps not so much a positive influence as a negative one. If the Bhāgavata tradition was under attack from Vedānta, and the commentaries on the Brahmā Sūtras certainly imply that it was, it is quite possible that the Bhāgavata Purāṇa was written specifically to counter these attacks. Thus, the close connection between the Bhāgavata and Vedānta may be an attempt to accommodate the criticisms of Vedānta while maintaining as much of the tradition as possible.
208Traditionally Vyāsa is the author of both the Brahmā Sūtras and the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. 93
The only Vedāntic tradition with which the Bhāgavata Purāṇa can claim any strong ideological connection is the Śrīvaiṣṇava School. However, referring to the
Śrīvaiṣṇavas as a major influence is problematic for many of the same reasons as assuming an Advaitin authorship of the Bhāgavata is problematic. Given that the
Bhāgavata was almost certainly known by his time, it seems odd that Rāmānuja never quotes from it and never mentions it. There are a number of reasons why this may be the case. It is possible that the Bhāgavata’s overwhelming emphasis on the worship of Kṛṣṇa may have rendered it un-interesting to a Śrīvaiṣṇava audience, or it might be the case that
Rāmānuja had simply never heard of it. Both of these are possibilities, but there are very likely ideological reasons for this. Van Buitenen has noted that Rāmānuja is extremely careful in what texts he makes use of. He does not quote from a number of things that one might have expected a member of a devotional Vaiṣṇava sect to quote from.209 When the polemical character of Rāmānuja’s writings is taken into consideration along with what seems to have been an attack on the Bhāgavata tradition in general by Vedāntins, it is not surprising that he would only have made use of texts of impeccable orthodoxy. The entire philosophical project of all early Śrīvaiṣṇava writings that survive is one of defending their own devotional tradition from attacks, seemingly of other Vedāntins. The response appears to have been one of accommodation to Vedānta. By assimilating the language and artifice of Vedānta the Śrīvaiṣṇavas were able to counter the claims that they were un-Vedic and incorporate themselves into the orthodox fold. There is good evidence that the Bhāgavata Purāṇa represents another such attempt by South Indian Bhāgavatas to integrate themselves into the Vedic tradition.
209 van Buitenen, “On the Archaism of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa,” 26. 94
It is obvious that the status of the Bhāgavata Brahmins in South India was highly questionable during this period. As has been seen they were under attack from a number of different forms of Vedānta as well as from the Pūrva Mīmāṃsā School.210 This situation would have provided a rationale for efforts to prove the legitimacy of the
Bhāgavata traditions as these Brahmins would have understood themselves to be just as brahmanical as anyone else, and in many cases more so. It is very likely that whoever wrote the Bhāgavata Purāṇa subscribed to such views. This can be seen from the name of the text itself; the Purāṇa of the Bhāgavatas.
The early history of the Śrīvaiṣṇavas provides an illustrative example as the earliest known writings of this sect are heavily concerned with proving a Vedic pedigree for their own Bhāgavata traditions. This is particularly truth of Yāmuna whose
Āgamaprāmāṇya provides a lengthy argument that tries to prove that Bhāgavata practices and Pañcarātra scriptures are not only not contradictory with the Vedas, but are actually more Vedic than the Vedas themselves. It is not difficult to see these same sorts of motivations at play in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. Obviously the Bhāgavata is not a
Śrīvaiṣṇava text, but it certainly arose from roughly the same geographic location and time period. Due to this it should not be surprising to see similar motivations at work behind the composition of the Bhāgavata and the systemization of Śrīvaiṣṇavism.
Despite the fact that the Bhāgavata Purāṇa is clearly not a Pañcarātra text, it displays many signs that it had considerable influence from Bhāgavata, and probably even Pañcarātra ideas. It is very likely that whoever wrote the text also subscribed to such views. A significant difference between the creation accounts of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa and those of the Pañcarātra scriptures is the Bhāgavata’s lack of śaktis in the process.
210 Neeval, 18. 95
Both the Purāṇic and Pañcarātra adaptations of the Sāṃkhya cosmology have the tendency to personify the processes as deities and the Bhāgavata is no exception to this.
However, the Pañcarātra texts generally personify all activities as the interactions of the
śaktis of God in order to maintain both a separation and identity with the Supreme God.
While such ideas could easily be read into the material in the Kapilagītā, the fact that it is never specifically mentioned may be significant. It is quite possible that the Bhāgavata came from a tradition in which these ideas were undeveloped, but they may also have been left out on purpose, in order to present a Pañcarātra cosmology (which it certainly is in many ways) in a more acceptable Purāṇic context.
As has been seen throughout this paper, in almost every instance the portion of the Bhāgavata which is being discussed agrees not with Classical Sāṃkhya, but with the
Bhāgavata or Vedānta tradition. The question then becomes, why is Sāṃkhya even used in the first place? It is not so much that the text calls the teachings it is passing on
Sāṃkhya, there is nothing strange about that in and of itself. What is strange is that it incorporates Kapila into this. A figure that is, in almost all instances, identified with a particular brand of philosophy, is placed into the Bhāgavata Purāṇa and made to say things that blatantly disagree with the School he is supposed to have founded.
As with all things in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, the answer is probably bhakti. One thing which the Bhāgavata is extremely good at is being inclusive. Not in the sense that it welcomes other ideas, but in the sense that it attempts to incorporate every possible tradition into its own devotional system. There is quite a lot of evidence that Sāṃkhya was well known in South India. Tamil literature appears to have knowledge of its basic 96 tenants, for instance it makes a notable appearance in the Maṇimekalai.211 The Sāṃkhya
School is not refuted by the Bhāgavata though. Instead it is transformed into bhakti. The true meaning of the teaching of Kapila becomes not liberation through knowledge of the tattvas, but devotion to God in the form of Kṛṣṇa. The Bhāgavata Purāṇa attempts to do this with all opposing views. It is not that they are wrong, it is that people have misunderstood them; in reality they all lead to devotion to God. Kapila provides a particularly good example of this as the system he is made to teach is so radically different from the Classical system he is known for.
211 Alain Danielou, trans., Manimekhalai (The Dancer with the Magic Bowl) (New York: New Directions, 1989), 137-139. 97
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